A couple that will go down in legend
by Talespinner69
Summary: After celebrating becoming single again, a plastered Mitsuki stumbles home from the bar. Due to her drunken state, the ashy haired woman is in no condition to be left by herself. Lucky for her, Mitsuki is found by a certain green haired boy. (Additional tags include hurt/comfort, drama, tragedy, family and humor) (Rating subject to change). (Update 6-27-20: rating back to M)
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter one: A woman's taste of freedom

"Let's hear it for freedom, everybody!"

The patrons of the local bar cheered as they hoisted up bottles and mugs of good beer, giving a toast to the woman who led them into the toast in the first place. This woman, Mitsuki Bakugo, was a notably young-looking and attractive woman, with the 'young-looking' part being something of a surprise considering that Mitsuki was thirty-nine-years-old. The ashy-blonde haired woman says that she owes her youthful looks to her quirk, which secretes glycerin from her skin that moisturizes said skin.

Although the bar was filled mostly by run-of-the mill patrons, both those with quirks and those without quirks, there were a few notable patrons as well. Aside from the aforementioned Mitsuki, the pro heroes Eraser Head and Present Mic, also known respectively as Shouta Aizawa and Hizashi Yamada, were grabbing a mug or two each of beer, figuring that after the long day that they had both put in over at U.A. High School, they deserved to grab a few drinks.

Looking over where the aforementioned Mitsuki was now starting a conga line with Ryuko Tatsuma, Nemuri Kayama and Yu Takeyama following her (in that order), Hizashi turned his attention back to his co-worker/bar buddy/friend. "…Isn't that the mother of that Katsuki boy who's in your homeroom class, Shouta?" Hizashi asked, a look of curious piqued interest on his face, "What's she doing forming that conga line?

Curious as to what Hizashi was talking about, the Underground Hero turned his head in the appropriate direction; when he did, he saw the mother of one of Class 1-A's problem kids in a conga line with three pro heroes, one of which was his and Hizashi's co-worker at U.A. Figuring that he has seen weirder things done by weirder people at weirder times, Shouta turned his attention back to his mug of beer. Taking a swig of his drink, Shouta drained what was left in his mug before he turned his attention back to Present Mic.

"…I believe that Bakugo mentioned something about it during class earlier today," Eraser Head remarked as he began to recollect something that occurred earlier in the day, "I wasn't paying too much attention to it at first since he was talking to Hanta, Eijiro, Denki and Mina, so I just assumed that it was just a usual discussion between them." Letting out a resigned sigh, Shouta continued, "But I immediately perked up and paid more attention when I heard Bakugo tell his group about how his parents had just finalized getting a divorce."

Hizashi, who was sipping on his beer at the time, did a spit take upon hearing Shouta say that Katsuki's parents were apparently divorced now. The underground hero was glad that his outgoing co-worker did not spit that beer onto him. "Excuse me?!" Hizashi nearly exclaimed at his chronically sleepy friend, "Did you just say 'divorce'?!"

Nodding a few times in the affirmative, Eraser Head said, "After classes were done for the day today, I asked Bakugo to stay back for a bit so I could talk to him alone, mostly because I wanted to confirm if what I heard was true. Sure enough, he confirmed that his parents were divorced." The underground hero sighed in a resigned tone before he continued. "Given how much of a mess his parents getting divorced will put on his plate, I told Bakugo that if he needed someone to talk to, he can see me when I have free time. I also reminded him how Hound Dog's door is always open."

Hizashi nodded in agreement, proud that Shouta was doing one of the most important aspects of being a teacher not just at U.A. but at any school as a whole; looking out for the well-being of the students. "…Of course," Shouta added as he signaled for the bartender to come over to refill his mug of beer, "Bakugo was his usual loud, brash self, but I could tell he was using it this time as a shield to hide behind how his parents getting divorced was messing with him."

"No kid, no matter what kind of person they are, can remain completely unaffected by their parents getting divorced," the very loud pro hero remarked in a tone of agreement. Taking another sip of the mug of beer he was nursing, Hizashi asked, "Do you know which parent will be Bakugo's main contact? This is especially important since the dorms all have to be fumigated, meaning the students will all have to return to living at home for the time being."

"Bakugo confirmed that he's staying with his mother, since she got the house and all," Shouta explained, "The house is also fairly close to U.A., so Bakugo won't have to travel all that far to attend classes."

Hizashi was about to say something else, but before he could get even one word out, both he and Shouta jumped a bit in their respective seats when they heard one of the women in the conga line cry out in annoyed anger. Looking over, the two U.A. teachers saw Nemuri and Yu arguing with each other, throwing the occasional slap to the face, while Mitsuki and Ryuko both watched the argument in amusement, laughing and cheering the two women on; Ryuko ended up laughing so hard that she ended up throwing up into a trash can that she was luckily standing right next to. It was clear to the two guys sitting at the bar that the four women were all completely plastered.

"Do you ever wonder how much Ryuko can drink while she's in her dragon form?" Hizashi asked his friend in a rhetorical tone.

"I'd be worried about her throwing up while she's in her dragon form," Shouta retorted dryly, drawing a snicker and a nod of agreement out of the very loud pro hero.

* * *

Mitsuki was in a very good fucking mood right now. She was now officially single again, having divorced from that shitty excuse of a man she was hitched to for so long. The ashy-haired woman still couldn't figure out how or why she hooked up with Masaru in the first place. In fact, now that Mitsuki gave it some thought, the only good thing that bastard ever really did was help her with bringing Katsuki into the world, and take a look at the boy's fucking attitude.

Mitsuki always wondered where Katsuki got that attitude of his from. Oh well.

The ashy-haired woman, well-plied with generous amounts of beer, was now walking back to her house, which she was lucky to get in the divorce settlement. That Yu woman with the long blonde hair offered to call her a ride, but Mitsuki decided to decline her offer, especially since said offer was made while Yu was laying sprawled out on one of the pool tables, clinging to a lawn gnome that was set up inside the bar as décor by the owner as if said lawn gnome was Yu's partner in bed. She even attempted to French kiss the lawn gnome.

Thus Mitsuki found herself walking/drunkenly stumbling her way back home at night. As she walked, Mitsuki passed by two teenage boys that both looked vaguely familiar to her; one was a blonde-haired fair skinned boy with a long thick tail with blonde fur at the end, and the other was a notably short boy with purple balls on his head where his hair should be. Both of the boys were dressed in casual wear that many would expect to see on teen boys such as them.

The plastered Mitsuki struggled to remember who the two boys were as she got closer to them. They seemed to be around Katsuki's age; maybe he knows them? Either way, when Mitsuki got close enough, she could hear the boy with the big thick tail talking to the shorter boy in a very clearly upset tone. The ashy-haired woman also could see the faces of the boys clearly now, given that she was close enough; the boy with the long thick tail looked very cross, and there was a hand-shaped mark on the one side of the shorter boy's face.

Eventually, Mitsuki and the two teenage boys walked within enough distance of each other for the ashy-haired woman to hear the teens. "I still can't believe you did that, Mineta," the taller boy said, an angry scowl clear on his face, "And right when Hagakure and I came out of the theater, no less. You're lucky you escaped with nothing more than that slap from Hagakure."

"Oh come on, Ojiro!" the shorter teen, who Mitsuki just learned was called Mineta, said to the taller teen, who is apparently called Ojiro, "Can you really blame me for asking that? It's a very valid question, if you think about it."

"More like it's a very inappropriate question, if you ask me," Ojiro countered, still sounding and looking very cross, "Seriously, dude. I finally worked up the courage to ask Hagakure out, and our date was going perfectly, but then you just had to show up and start being the infamous pervert that everyone at U.A. knows you as." Giving the shorter boy a serious glare, Ojiro added in a tone of warning, "If she doesn't want to continue going out with me because of your stunt, then I will do worse than a simple slap across your face."

Mineta was about to speak up, but before he could get even one word out, Mitsuki had gotten to within talking distance with the two teens. "Who the fuck are you two supposed to be?" Mitsuki asked in a drunken slur, "You look kind of familiar. Are you some of Katsuki's friends, maybe?"

Both Ojiro and Mineta looked over to the drunken ashy-haired woman standing in front of them. "Oh, you're Mrs. Bakugo," Ojiro remarked, recognizing this woman as the mother of his and Mineta's explosive classmate. Arching an eyebrow, Ojiro asked, "I heard talk from Bakugo that you're getting through some rather nasty times. Are you okay, ma'am?"

"Tha' fucker Masaru can go fuck himshelf!" Mitsuki declared, loudly and drunkenly, as she slurred some of her words, "I shoulda cut tha fucker looshe yearsh ago!"

"He's got a point, you know," Mineta said to his classmate's drunken mother, "I mean, what you got going is pretty big."

Suddenly, Mitsuki's eyes widened, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks. Glaring angrily at the short, purple ball-haired teen, Mitsuki snarled, "…Did you just call me big?"

"What?" Mineta replied in confusion, "No, you just didn't-"

"Are you suggesting that I'm fat?" the ashy-haired woman said, interrupting Mineta in the process. Both boys could easily tell that Mitsuki, due to her drunken state, was mixing things up and had trouble understanding some of what they were talking about. Bringing her right foot back in preparation to deliver a devastating kick, Mitsuki said, "No one fucking calls me fucking fat and fucking gets the fuck away from it!"

Quickly and, before either Ojiro or Mineta could react, Mitsuki swung her right foot forward, right up into Mineta's coin purse, scoring a very serious critical hit on the infamous pervert of U.A.'s class 1-A. Mineta, having been struck in his hidden treasure, covered his injured member as he fell to his knees then fell over onto his left side. As the shorter teen gasped in pain, Mitsuki pointed and (drunkenly) laughed at him. "Ah ha! Sherves you fucking right!" Mitsuki slurred as she walked around the boys and proceeded to walk/stumble away.

Despite his earlier anger at Mineta, Ojiro couldn't help himself but kneel down to check on his perverted classmate. Still, Mineta looked like he'll live, and some of the aforementioned anger began to pop back up into Ojiro's mind, but only in the capacity to make the blonde-haired boy think that what Mineta had just endured was some manner of cosmic punishment. Ojiro then turned to look in the direction that Mitsuki was walking/stumbling in as she slowly but surely got out of sight.

"…" As he looked at the slowly disappearing Mitsuki, Ojiro thought in a somewhat worried tone, "…_Now I know where Bakugo gets it from_."

* * *

Izuku Midoriya could not help but let his mind wander as he was walking back home to his mother's apartment, which he has returned to staying at temporarily since the dorms were all being fumigated. Just what had caused the dorms to get so bad so quickly that they needed to be fumigated? Hopefully All Might, or Aizawa-sensei, or one of the other members of the U.A. staff would be able to tell him, assuming that such information wasn't being kept classified for one reason or another.

It wouldn't be the first time.

Izuku also felt like he was forgetting something important, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. He took a quick look at the grocery bags he was carrying, having volunteered to go to the store to take care of some shopping for his mother Inko. The emerald-eyed boy saw that all of the items on the list given to him were in the bags, so he didn't forget to buy anything at the store. Hmm, maybe it _wasn_'_t_ related to buying groceries.

Maybe it was something that Izuku felt might have had something to do with the students temporarily having to vacate from the dorms so that they could be fumigated? Mei Hatsume of the Support Department was holding a new invention of hers that was roughly the size of a coffee brewer a few hours before the order to have all the students vacate so the place could be fumigated was given; when Izuku pressed on the subject a bit, all that the eccentric pink-haired girl would say was that 'her new baby will put all stink bomb pranks of the past to shame'. Mei then casually asked Izuku if he knew which dorm room Mineta lived in.

"Someone really needs to have a sit down with Mineta," Izuku said aloud but to himself. Then again, he was alone, with no one around; who would scold him if he decided to go into another one of his muttering tangents? Maybe that woman who sounds like she's sobbing uncontrollably on that bench about a dozen feet away or so from the sounds of it. Also, was there a woman on that bench sobbing uncontrollably?

His good nature overriding everything else, Izuku made his way over to where an adult woman was sitting on a bench, crying her eyes out. When Izuku got closer, not only did he catch the scent of alcohol, telling him that this woman had tried to drown what sorrows she had in booze, but when he got to within a meter of the woman, he noticed, to his alarm and growing concern, that it was Mitsuki Bakugo.

"_That_'_s Kacchan_'_s mom_," the green-haired hero-in-training thought worriedly as he went right over to the crying, drunken Mitsuki, "_Now I remember what I was forgetting_! _Kacchan said that his parents just got divorced_. _From the looks of it_, _I_'_d say that Mrs_. _Bakugo tried to drown some of her sorrows over the divorce in alcohol_." A quick few steps or so brought Izuku standing right next to the mother of his friend turned bully turned U.A. classmate turned semi-friend.

Izuku got Mitsuki's attention by gently laying a hand on her shoulder and giving her a gentle shake, temporarily snapping her out of her crying, buzzed stupor and making her turn her attention to face him. When the divorced woman turned her attention to him, Izuku saw that her eyes were red and puffy from crying, lines trailing down from her eyes being another sign that she had been crying; additionally, there was a very mild amount of mucus trailing down from her nostrils, and there was a dried area around her mouth that Izuku believed was most likely either spit, alcohol, a bit of vomit or a generous mix of at least two of those items.

But outside of all of that, class 1-A's sweet cinnamon roll noticed that Mitsuki's face was currently contorted into an expression of sadness, mixed with a dash of confusion, a sign that indicated that the divorced woman was currently lost on what to do, what the future had in store for her now. "_Wow_, _Kacchan_'_s mom is really taking her divorce hard_," Izuku thought when he got a look at Mitsuki's face. Gently shaking his head to refocus his thoughts, Izuku cleared his throat a bit before speaking up.

"Mrs. Bakugo, are you alright?" Izuku began, worry and concern clear in his tone.

"A dragon drank all of my booze and a giant French kissed a lawn gnome," Mitsuki drunkenly rambled, her upset tone remaining, "How do you think I feel, officer?"

It was clear to Izuku that Mitsuki had no idea what she was talking about; she probably wasn't aware of where she was at right now. Given Mitsuki's obvious disorientation and overall drunkenness at the moment, the green-haired boy didn't feel right letting the ashy-haired woman just carry on like this. Shifting the grocery bags in his right hand to his left, Izuku then offered his now free hand to Mitsuki.

"Mrs. Baukgo, you're in no condition to just be left alone," Izuku said, "Come with me. Me and my mom's place is much closer. I'll try fixing you up there before I send you on your way."

"Ah hell nah!" Mitsuki drunkenly declared, "I ain't letting no damn anyone play nurse to me! I'll have you know that I'm my own damn-"

"Mrs. Bakugo, I insist!" Izuku declared, both his tone and expression firm as he cut Mitsuki off midsentence. This surprising firmness from the teenage boy made the ashy-haired woman take pause. Mitsuki looked right at Izuku, the blush on her face clearly a result of how well-plied with good drink she was.

This person, whoever he was because Mitsuki just realized that he wasn't actually a police officer because he would have taken her in by now by force, was rather bold. At first, the ashy-haired woman thought that he was just as wimpy and weak-willed of a person as her (now) ex-husband Masaru. But this guy was bold, insisting. Unlike Masaru, the guy standing in front of Mitsuki actually had a spine.

The ashy-haired woman actually found that to be appealing.

Seeing that this guy who she still did not recognize was still offering his right hand, Mitsuki reached forward and grabbed it, allowing the guy to help her to her feet. "Like I said, me and my mom's place is nearby," Izuku said to Mitsuki, "I can brew you some coffee, and even let you stay the night if you're not well enough to return home."

"Heh," Mitsuki remarked in a mildly amused tone, "Sure. Why not?" With that surprisingly short guy leading her off somewhere, Mitsuki stumbled along, wondering just what this random guy was going to do for her.

* * *

Within fifteen minutes, Mitsuki found herself sitting at a table in an apartment's kitchen area while the guy who brought her here set his grocery bags on the counter, started up some coffee, then poured a mug when enough had brewed and presented the mug of coffee to her. "Here," Izuku said to Mitsuki as he gave her the coffee, "Aizawa-sensei always says that he has a mug of coffee if he needs to get back on his feet quickly after drinking alcohol."

Mitsuki stared at the mug of coffee for a bit, her expression still showing that she was under the influence of alcohol. Reaching for the mug, the ashy-haired woman said as she grasped it with both hands before bringing it to her mouth, "So you really aren't an officer after all. Officers don't give drunks in the clink mugs of coffee."

Chucking a bit, Izuku said, "No, ma'am, I'm not an officer." Looking a bit embarrassed, Izuku continued, "I'm just trying to help you recover from your drunkenness is all."

Mitsuki drank the freshly brewed coffee, its warmth flowing into her and already making her feel better. She was still very much buzzed, so Mitsuki had no idea that she was being helped back onto her feet by one of her son Katsuki's classmates over at U.A. Even with the coffee that she had consumed, the ashy-haired woman was still too out of it to get going on her own. Grumbling a bit, Mitsuki sat her mug back down on the table. "…I'm gonna need to crash here for the night, I'm afraid," Mitsuki said, her voice slurring a bit but not enough to distort her words.

"The sofa should be sufficient, ma'am," Izuku remarked as he gently retrieved Mitsuki's now empty coffee mug, "Also, your shirt has a bit of dried puke on it. Would you like something clean to wear?" The gentle nod in the affirmative from Mitsuki prompted Izuku to go about finding a clean shirt for his classmate's mom. Izuku grabbed from his closet an All Might t-shirt that his dad Hisashi sent him in the mail while working abroad; this particular t-shirt, which was made in the United States, was a men's size 4XL, well above what someone like Izuku, with slim yet well-toned body, needed.

Gently tossing the All Might t-shirt to Mitsuki, Izuku said, "This ought to do sufficiently for a sleep shirt, ma'am." Mitsuki nodded once in thanks, humming a bit as she did so, before she sat the All Might t-shirt aside and proceeded to remove her purple casual dress top, followed by taking off her white shirt under that. Izuku instantly turned around when the ashy-haired woman started to undress in the middle of his and his mom's apartment, letting out a strangled cry of embarrassment as he turned to face away.

Izuku stood there like that until a tap on his right shoulder from behind made him turn back around. When he did, he saw Mitsuki wearing the All Might t-shirt, and she was holding her purple casual dress top, the white shirt that was underneath it, her black skirt, and her socks that were shoved into her shoes. "Hey, where can I put all of this?" Mitsuki asked, the blushing on her face and mild twitching of her left eye showing that she was still very much out of it.

Izuku, noticing that Mitsuki had removed pretty much _everything_ aside from her undergarments, lit up red as a shiny red ornament on a Christmas tree; after all, Kacchan's mom was down to her undergarments in the Midoriya household. Taking a mental note to NEVER mention this little bit to the explosive teen, Izuku somewhat shakily received Mitsuki's outfit from her while saying, "I'll g-go ahead and put your clothes in the w-wash for you while leaving the sh-shoes n-near the washer and dryer. They'll be clean by m-morning."

"Aye, aye, captain," Mitsuki replied, her tone still sounding a bit drunken, as she gave the green-haired boy a playful salute. After Izuku went about starting up a round of laundry to clean the clothes he had collected from the ashy-haired woman, he proceeded to lead her to the living room and directed her to the couch. It was a relatively new couch that Izuku's mother Inko had received as something of a gift from a neighbor that was moving out; it was a shiny black, plush leather number that one would easily sink into upon sitting on it. The couch gave the Midoriya living room some much needed flare and style.

It wasn't long before Mitsuki fell right asleep, the couch she laid on actually being softer than her mattress back at her place. With Mitsuki asleep, Izuku went to the laundry room and stood in front of the washer and dryer, partly to keep an eye on things in there, partly to give Kacchan's mom some respectful distance, but mostly because Izuku was still very much embarrassed by the fact that a woman who had only an oversized All Might t-shirt on over her undergarments was out in the living room, passed out more than asleep. Izuku could even hear her snoring all the way out in the living room.

…

Once the laundry was done and Izuku left all of Mitsuki's things on top of the dryer, he retreated to his bedroom, took off his casual wear that he had on and put on a baggy t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, then crawled into bed.

How did all of this happen? First the students of U.A. had to temporarily leave the dorms so the school could fumigate them, prompting everyone to go back to their respective homes for the time being. Then Izuku came across the mother of one of his friends (although Bakugo's status as a friend of Izuku's can be debated), drunk out of her mind and crying on a bench out in public. Izuku brought the woman to his place, cleaned her up a bit, and let her stay the night so she didn't have to brave the trek home in her current unfit state.

Izuku suddenly realized that his own mom was still out. What if she came home, only to see one of her friends laying on the new sofa, passed out from a night of hard drinking? The green-eyed cinnamon roll had no idea how he was going to explain all of-

Izuku's thought process suddenly halted when his bedroom door opened. Turning his head as it laid on his pillow, Izuku saw Mitsuki standing in the open doorway. "Hey, sweetie," the ashy-haired woman said, more than a hint of a seductive tone in her voice. It was a hint that Izuku was very much able to pick up on, and his alarmed him to no end. What also alarmed Izuku to no end was the fact that Mitsuki still very clearly sounded out of it.

"M-M-Mrs. Bakugo?" Izuku was barely able to stammer out as the woman in question walked over to where he laid in bed. To the green-haired boy's further alarm, Mitsuki gently picked up the upper corner of the blanket on his bed before gently sliding into bed, lying right next to him. Izuku silently prayed to any and every god that would listen, begging that his mother not return home to see this. He also threw in begging that Kacchan to never find out about this.

Izuku tried to get up, but Mitsuki gently pushed him back down. "Shhh," the still mildly drunk ashy-haired woman said, "I don't want to fool around or anything. I just wanna lay here with you." Without having any choice or say in the matter, Izuku laid back down, Mitsuki's left arm under the back of his neck and her right arm laying over his chest. As he was gently held by the drunken ashy-haired woman as she fell back into sleep, Izuku made a vow to himself right there and then to never drink any alcohol ever.

END, CHAPTER ONE

Author's notes;

Yes, I'm doing a straight-up BNHA/MHA story. Yes, Izuku is being (or will be) shipped with Mrs. Bakugo (or as some would say, Deku is being shipped with Kacchan's mom). Now, some would say that Izuku/Mitsuki is a completely invalid ship, but rest assured that I have a very good reason for doing this, a reason that will be gone over in detail over the course of this story as a whole. But that is another story for another time. Speaking of other times, next time we'll see how things are going to work out for Izuku and a girl that's a little over twice his age.

Also, can you imagine Bakugo's reaction when he finds out that his mom is (or will be) an item with 'that damn nerd Deku'? Oh ho ho, what shenanigans.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter two: The morning after

The next morning, Izuku woke up and sat up in bed, not disturbing Mitsuki Bakugo, the grown adult woman who was still lying in bed next to him. Izuku wished that he didn't have any school today, because after what he went through the previous night, he doubt that he would be able to properly focus on his lessons today. Very careful so as to not disturb Mitsuki, Izuku crawled out of bed and made his way out to the kitchen area.

Upon reaching his destination, Izuku saw his mother Inko sitting at the table, enjoying a bit of breakfast that she had prepared for herself. "Oh, good morning, sweetie," the full-bodied woman greeted when she saw Izuku enter the kitchen area, "Did you sleep well last night?"

"Not…exactly," Izuku replied as he went into the kitchen to get himself something to eat.

"Oh, Izuku," Inko began in a casual yet mildly curious tone, "When I went into the kitchen to make coffee for the morning, I saw that there was already a mostly full pot in the brewer. I'm guessing that the coffee served over at U.A. is so terrible that the first thing you wanted when you returned home while the fumigating is going on at the dorms is some real coffee?"

Izuku immediately nodded nervously in the affirmative, hoping that his mother would leave the matter at that. Unfortunately for the green-haired cinnamon roll, his mother, just like all mothers out there, are able to pick up the barest shifts in the tone of their children. "Izuku, dear," Inko began, a hint of concern mixed with suspiciousness in her tone, "What's going on?"

Sighing in a resigned tone since he was caught, Izuku figured that he might as well come clean. "Umm, here's the thing, mom," Izuku began, "While I was on my way home last night after I got those groceries for you, I ran into someone that…that I knew. They were in no condition to just be left alone, and the apartment was closer than their place, so I brought them here, cleaned them up a bit, and let them crash on the sofa."

"Oh, so you were helping out a friend is all," Inko replied, "Well that's no problem, Izuku. Although I do have to ask why your friend isn't on the sofa right now."

"Umm…" Izuku began, unsure how to explain this to his mother, "…They were drunk when I found them. They remained drunk right up until I went to bed, at which point they entered my bedroom and crawled into bed next to me. They ended up falling asleep right there."

Inko's eyes widened at that. "…Umm, wow," the full-bodied woman began, "I knew that teens like to sneak alcohol, but I didn't think one of your friends at school would get so drunk that they would think to crawl into bed next to you." Her eyes narrowing in suspicion, Inko asked, "Your friend didn't try anything, did they?"

Quickly shaking his head in the negative, Izuku said with eyes widened in shock and alarm, "Oh no, mom! All that they did was lay next to me in bed and fall right asleep! Nothing that you need to worry about took place!"

Relaxing a bit, Inko let out a small sigh before saying, "Well thank goodness for that. I'd be very worried if one of your classmates tried something with you while they were under the influence of alcohol."

"They…aren't a classmate of mine, mom," Izuku admitted slowly, a vibrant, bright red blush of embarrassment spreading across his face, "In fact, they aren't even a teen like what you thought a few moments ago."

That confession from her cinnamon roll of a child made Inko go wide-eyed in shock and surprise. "But you said that you know them!" Inko practically exclaimed, starting to look as if she was getting frantic.

"They are someone that I know," Izuku confirmed, worry for his mother's emotional well-being clear in his tone, "It's just that they aren't a classmate. Or someone in my age group. In fact, they aren't even technically a friend."

Immediately, Inko stood up rather forcefully, slamming her hands on the table as she pushed herself up from her seat. The look on her face made it clear that she was not in the least bit happy with what she believed was going on. "I knew it!" the full-bodied woman proclaimed, "I knew that I couldn't trust All Might with you!"

Now _that_ got Izuku a bit mad, the way his mom was accusing the former number one hero of doing anything seedy. "It's not All Might, mom!" the green-haired teen snapped defensively, "In fact, it's not even a teacher at U.A.!" Crossing his arms over his chest, Izuku scolded, "I can't believe that you would even think that about All Might, mom! Much less any of my teachers!"

"…Really?" Inko replied as her temper immediately began to die down, sitting back down in her chair slowly. Now looking embarrassed rather than steamed, Inko replied with a somewhat bashfully embarrassed look on her face, "Sorry about that sweetie. I guess with all that has taken place ever since you got your quirk and began going to U.A., I got really worried that something bad might happen."

Seeing the ashamed embarrassment in his mother's expression, Izuku's own expression simmered down. Letting out a resigned sigh, Izuku said, "No, mom. There's no need for you to apologize. I should try to give you as much info about the situation as possible."

"Like maybe telling me who specifically it is that you found drunk and brought here to clean them up?" Inko suggested, "Seriously, sweetie. You say that you know this person, but all I got is that they are someone that you know." A hint of worry entering her eyes, Inko asked, "Who is it that you brought home?"

Embarrassment returning full force to Izuku, the green-eyed boy said, "Oh, well, umm, it's actually rather difficult for me to explain to you, but it's someone that you also-"

Izuku was cut off when both he and his mother heard an adult woman yawn rather loudly, with that yawn being accompanied by the sounds of footsteps coming from the hallway where the bedrooms were located. Within a few seconds, both Izuku and Inko saw Mitsuki, still wearing the oversized All Might t-shirt that Izuku supplied her with, walking out of the hallway and into the kitchen area.

Stretching a bit, Mitsuki said, "Hot damn! I haven't had that good of a night time sleep since before I filed for divorce to get away from Masaru's sorry ass." Cracking her neck a bit, Mitsuki said as she opened her eyes, "Hey, is there any coffee, left? Because I could sure go for some-" The ashy-haired woman stopped short when she saw, as well as realized, that not only was she in Inko's apartment, but that both Inko and her son Izuku were sitting at the table, having seen her come in from the hallway. There was also a look of complete and total shock on the full-bodied woman's face as she noticed that Mitsuki was wearing one of Izuku's shirts.

It wasn't just the fact that she was in Inko's apartment that Mitsuki realized. Events from the previous evening began to flood back into Mitsuki's mind, memories no longer blocked off by the wall of hazy drunkenness. Looking at both of the Midoriyas as a whole, the ashy-haired woman turned her attention solely to her well-fed friend. "…Inko," Mitsuki began in a clearly worried tone, "Please tell me that you were the handsome police officer from last night who brought me here to take care of me while I was completely shit-faced and plastered."

Inko said nothing, as she was still trying to process everything that had just at that moment been made available to her knowledge. As Inko was still trying to sort through everything, it fell to Izuku to respond in his mother's place. Chuckling nervously, the green-haired cinnamon roll said to Mitsuki, "Umm, actually, Mrs. Bakugo, it wasn't my mom who brought you here to rest and to clean you up a bit. That…" Turning his head slightly so he could look away and down to the floor, Izuku finished, "…That was me."

The look of dawning realization mixed with embarrassed horror on Mitsuki's face was a sign that she was just as worried, if not more so, than Inko herself.

…

A few minutes later, Mitsuki was seated at the dining table with Izuku and Inko, a mug of coffee sitting in front of her. Groaning in embarrassment, Mitsuki said, "I seriously cannot believe that this is actually happening."

"Yeah, me too," Inko began, a hint of sarcastic annoyance in her tone, "My best friend getting drunk and crawling into bed with my _son_!" Dropping any and all sarcasm and humor in her tone, the full-bodied woman continued, "Seriously, Mitsuki! Izuku is less than half your age! In fact, if I recall correctly, Izuku is slightly younger than your son Katsuki!" Sighing, Inko remarked as she crossed her arms over her chest, "This is just unbelievable, Mitsuki!"

"I am _so_ sorry, Inko," Mitsuki said as she laid her head face-down onto her arms, which were laying on the surface of the table in front of her, "What happened is something that just can't be overlooked. I mean, sure, I'm going through a bit of a trying time right now since I am recently divorced, and I tried to drink away some of my stress at the bar, but none of that excuses all that had happened last night."

Sighing in a resigned tone, Inko just looked at the clearly regretful ashy-haired woman sitting diagonally from her at the table (Mitsuki was sitting on the immediate left of Izuku, who sat directly in front of Inko). After considering Mitsuki for a few silent seconds, Inko said, "Well, Izuku said that all you did was lay next to him and fall right asleep. Even in your drunken state, you knew better than to try anything with my son, even though you didn't realize that it was him who brought you here until a few minutes ago." Her expression softening by just the slightest bit, Inko said, "I can at least say thanks for that."

With her own sigh, albeit one that sounded guiltier than Inko's, Mitsuki said, "Please, Inko. Don't thank me. Everything that happened when I got out of the bar up until now isn't even the worst part in this entire unfortunate mess."

"What do you mean, Mitsuki?" Inko asked, arching a wry eyebrow as she and Izuku both reached for their respective coffee mugs to sip their coffee. As the Midoriyas drank their coffee, Mitsuki let out another embarrassed groan, right before she said something.

"I think that I've honestly fallen in love with your son, Inko."

Both Inko and Izuku spit out what coffee they had in their respective mouths at the time out of sheer surprise over what Mitsuki had just confessed.

* * *

Inko, in her infinite patience, said that the matter of Mitsuki having fallen in love with Izuku can be discussed in length and detail after Izuku returned home from his classes at U.A. High School for the day. That impending discussion was all that was on the green-eyed cinnamon roll's mind as he made his way to school at Japan's most prestigious hero school. If there was one comfort that Izuku could draw upon, it was the fact that no body at U.A. was currently aware that Izuku might possibly get a girlfriend who was more than double his age.

Speaking of Izuku's friends…

"Hey, Deku!" Izuku heard a familiar female voice call out, snapping him out of his thoughts as he looked over in the direction the call came from. When he did, Izuku saw that Ochaco Uraraka, along with Shoto Todoroki and Tenya Iida, were standing about a dozen feet away at a street corner. Uraraka, who was clearly the one that had called out to Izuku, was also waving her right hand in the air, hoping to get Izuku's attention.

Right away, the green-haired teen went over to greet his friends, thankful that there were some familiar and friendly faces here. "Boy, am I glad to see you guys," Izuku said when he had reached his friends, "Although I'm a bit surprised that you all were here. Were you guys waiting for me so we could go to U.A. together?"

"Well it's natural for friends to walk to school together, right?" Tenya asked. The class representative of 1-A looked like he was about to say something else, but he stopped short right away when he, as well as Uraraka and Todoroki, noticed the look of worry on Izuku's face. "Is something the matter, Midoriya?" Tenya asked, a hint of concern in both his tone and expression.

"Yeah, you look like my mother when my father declares that he's taking her out on a date," Todoroki remarked casually as he and the others began to walk to U.A., "You aren't in a relationship with someone who is potentially abusive to you, are you?"

Laughing in a manner that one might misconstrue as boastful, Uraraka said, "Of course Izuku isn't dating anyone, Todoroki! And if he was then there's no way that they would treat him in any way other than like the hero he is!" After Uraraka's boast, there seemed to be a gleam of confidence in her eyes, as if she was assured of something.

Sighing a bit, Izuku said, "Uraraka's right, Todoroki. I'm not in a relationship with anyone right now." Gently shaking his head, the green-eyed teen continued, "But if what I think is true, that will most likely change sometime after I get out of school for the day."

Tenya, Todoroki and (especially) Uraraka stopped right in their tracks when Izuku told them that he might start a romantic relationship with someone. "You found a girl that you like, Midoriya?" Tenya asked in a tone of piqued interest.

"Ehh," Izuku replied with a bit of a mildly embarrassed groan, "It's more like _she_ found _me_."

Tenya and Uraraka continued to look at Izuku with surprised expressions (Uraraka especially), but Todoroki's expression shifted to one of casual interest, as if what his green-haired friend had just said was something that should be readily expected. "Ah, so a girl finally told you that she was in love with you, Midoriya," Todoroki remarked casually, "I always had a gut feeling that you were popular with the girls, which would explain why Mineta is so vastly jealous of you."

"So Midoriya," Tenya began as he and Todoroki leaned a bit closer to their friend; Uraraka was still in a bit of shock thus was not trying to be as invasive of Izuku's personal space as both of the boys. "Who's the lucky girl?" the 1-A representative continued.

"I'd…rather that it not get out," Izuku replied a bit nervously, "Especially if word of it does get out, then Kacchan will undoubtedly try to actually carry out one of his many death threats to me."

"So it's a girl in 1-B?" Todoroki guessed, getting Izuku and Tenya, along with Uraraka who was snapped out of her thoughts, to look at their half-hot half-cold friend.

Gently shaking his head, Izuku replied, "No, Todoroki, it's not a girl in 1-B." Arching an eyebrow out of piqued curiosity, Izuku asked, "Why do you think that, though?"

Explaining himself, Todoroki said, "I heard a rumor that Bakugo has a crush on a girl in 1-B. I asked him about it since I myself intend to court Reiko Yanagi, and I was worried that she was the girl that Bakugo had his eye on. As it turned out, Reiko is not the girl in 1-B that Bakugo likes, but Bakugo _does_ like a 1-B girl. I don't have any idea who it is, though."

"…You have a crush on Reiko, Todoroki?" Uraraka asked, a curious and mildly confused look on her face.

Todoroki was about to explain things to Uraraka, but before he could get one word out, he was cut off by Tenya who announced, "We've arrived at U.A., everybody!" Doing his signature hand-chopping gesture, Tenya declared, "Let's give it our all again in our classes today!" The others all let out a sigh as they proceeded to make their way into the school grounds, wondering what the prestigious hero school had in store for them today.

* * *

The students of class 1-A were all in their assigned seats as their homeroom teacher, Shota Aizawa, was going over a lesson that, although it didn't exactly pertain to anything that was on a need-to-know basis for aspiring pro heroes, was still something that the underground hero firmly believed that his students absolutely needed to know.

"…And that is why I firmly believe that Ryukyu should not be allowed to consume alcohol while she is in her dragon form," Aizawa said as he finished writing something on the blackboard that was on the wall behind his desk, "The last thing that is needed is to call in a clean-up crew and having to explain to them that they're needed to clean up an ocean of dragon vomit." The casual yet non-joking look on Aizawa's face, matched by the seriousness of his tone, told the students of 1-A that this was going to be a _very_ interesting day indeed. Giving his students a wry look, the underground hero asked, "Now then, are there any questions?"

When a sea of hands went up, Aizawa looked around to see which student with a raised hand he should call upon. Aizawa settled on Hagakure, even though he technically couldn't see the hand that the invisible student was raising; he could only see the right sleeve of a girl's uniform top being raised. "Yes, Hagakure, what's your question?" Aizawa asked.

"What's the significance of the lawn gnome that you said Mt. Lady was cradling and trying to make out with while she was laying on the pool table?" the invisible student asked.

Nodding a bit, Aizawa replied in his same casual yet serious tone, "Ah, I'm glad that someone is asking the big questions. You see-" Before the underground hero could give his student a proper answer to her question, he was cut off when the door leading into the 1-A classroom was opened, making everyone turn to see Hizashi Yamada, also known as the pro hero slash U.A. teacher Present Mic, stand in the doorway for a moment.

"Hey Shota," Hizashi began, "You got a minute? Nezu wants to talk to some of the teachers about that upcoming tournament against Vulcan High."

Sighing a bit, Aizawa turned to face his class of twenty students or, as he liked to call them, 'trouble-makers'. Pointing a finger at his class as a whole, Aizawa said, "Can I count on the lot of you to behave yourselves while I go to an emergency staff meeting?"

"You can count on us, Aizawa-sensei," Tenya declared confidently as he stood up from his desk as he gave the underground hero a respectful salute, "In fact, as class representative, I will personally keep an eye on things here for you until you return from the emergency meeting with the other teachers!"

"Yeah?" Bakugo snarkily remarked from his desk, "Well why don't you start by yanking out the yard stick that's shoved firmly up your ass, Four-Eyes?" As Bakugo, as well as Kaminari, Mina and Sero, all chuckled a bit at Bakugo's comment to Tenya, the class representative turned to face his vulgar, unruly classmate.

Making his signature hand-chopping gesture at the explosive teen, Tenya said, "That sort of language is exactly why Aizawa-sensei is hesitant to leave us to our own devices, Bakugo! You can at least watch it with the language and insults, can't you?"

"Look, I'll consider it a win if nobody dies and if Mineta's kept from doing any of his usual antics," Aizawa remarked to his class as he walked towards the open doorway where Hizashi was waiting, "The last thing I need going on while I'm gone is-"

"KATSUKI!" an adult woman's voice called out angrily, cutting Aizawa off midsentence. Suddenly, before anyone could even think, both Aizawa and Hizashi were shoved to the side by Mitsuki, who stormed right into the 1-A classroom. Seeing his mother so brazenly storm into the classroom, and while class was in session no less, really ticked Bakugo off.

"What the hell are you doing here, you old hag?!" Bakugo snapped at his mother, "Can't you see that class in in session right now, damn it?!"

Holding her right hand out to her son in a gesture suggesting she wanted something handed to her, Mitsuki said in a casual tone in a casual volume, "I need to borrow about five-thousand yen until either I get my next paycheck at work or I get my first alimony check."

His eyes widening out of sheer shock over his mother's reason for storming into class, Bakugo's face acquired an even more enraged look. "Are you kidding me?!" the explosive teen yelled, "You barged into class because you wanted to borrow money from me?! Why the hell couldn't you at least wait until after I got out of school for the day?!"

"I'm about broke, and I have to take care of some shopping while I'm out in town," Mitsuki explained to her son, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

As they watched Bakugo start an argument with his mother in the middle of class, Aizawa and Hizashi both turned to face each other, exchanging confused looks that, to be honest, carried hints of mild amusement. "…You know, for once Bakugo is actually a bit justified in raising his voice at someone," Aizawa remarked to his co-worker and fellow teacher.

Nodding in agreement, Hizashi said to Aizawa while pointing at Mitsuki, "What I would like to know is how she got onto the campus without problem. I mean, I know that she's the mother of one of our students, but you'd think that they'd at least have Mitsuki go through the process of acquiring a guest pass before letting her come up here, or better yet, just have her wait at the front desk while a call to this classroom is sent for Bakugo to go down to greet his mother and see what she wanted so that class here wouldn't be disturbed."

Pointing into the classroom, Aizawa countered, "This class was disturbed since day one, Hizashi. At this point, I highly doubt that a parent storming into the classroom while class is in session would cause any long term damage."

While the two pro heroes were talking over at the open doorway, in the main area of the 1-A classroom, Bakugo was still having an argument with his mother. "Are you out of your damn mind just coming in here?!" Bakugo snapped, "Do you even have a visitor's pass to go and walk around the campus?!"

"No, but then again I only need to stick around long enough to borrow that five-thousand yen so I can go and-" Mitsuki began, but she stopped short when, as her eyes wandered, she spotted Izuku sitting in class; the green-haired cinnamon roll was hoping that he would be the last person that all involved parties would notice, but it seemed that the gods themselves have decided to ignore his silent prayer.

Turning her attention back to Bakugo, Mitsuki said in an amused tone, "Hey, Katsuki, you know how I told you earlier today before you left for school that I'm seeing a new boyfriend ever since I got divorced from your dad?"

"Why the hell are you even bringing up that sorry sack of crap?" Bakugo remarked with a sneering look of disgust on his face, "You already cut that bastard loose, so there's no damn point in bring up the-hey, wait a minute." Realizing that his mother just mentioned that she was now seeing someone new, the explosive teen said, "Barely a day has passed since you became single again, and you've already got a new boyfriend?"

"Well it's not official yet," Mitsuki began to reply, "But here's hoping that I can convince Inko that what I want to do is a good idea."

Now Bakugo looked even more confused. "…The hell does Mrs. Midoriya have to do with you having a new boyfriend?" Bakugo asked.

In response to her son's question, Mitsuki pointed to where Izuku was sitting, something that filled the green-haired cinnamon roll with absolute dread. "My potential new boyfriend is sitting right over there," the ashy-haired woman said, her right index finger clearly pointing out Izuku. Bakugo turned around and saw, to his vastly angered horror, that his mother was pointing to, of all people, that damn nerd Deku.

As everyone else noticed that Mitsuki was identifying Izuku as 'her new boyfriend', Kaminari and Mineta both got up from their desks, went over to Izuku and got on their knees as they were bowing to him, as if he were some sort of sultan worthy of the highest reverence. "You are a god, Midoriya!" Mineta proclaimed as he and Kaminari proceeded to borderline worship their green-haired classmate, "A god, I say!"

"Mrs. Bakugo was the girl that you were telling me, Todoroki and Uraraka about on our walk to school earlier, Midoriya?!" Tenya exclaimed out of sheer shock.

Nodding in understanding, Todoroki casually remarked, "That _would_ explain why he was so hesitant about Bakugo finding out." Crossing his arms over his chest, Todoroki gave another nod before saying, "And here I thought it was Bakugo's mystery crush in 1-B."

"You shut the fuck up, half-n-half!" Bakugo yelled at the half-hot half-cold student before turning to face Izuku. "As for you, Deku," the explosive teen continued, "What the fuck do you think you're doing trying to date my mother?!"

Before anyone could say anything, Mitsuki smacked Bakugo in the back of his head. "Chill thyself before you kill thyself, Katsuki," the ashy-haired woman scolded her son, "And before you go off on another one of your tangents, I'll have you know that he didn't pick me up, but rather _I_ picked _him_ up!"

Giving his mother a look of total disbelief, Bakugo turned his attention back to Izuku briefly. "Okay, Deku, I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions on you just now," Bakugo said in the calmest tone that he was able to manage at the time. Turning back to face Mitsuki, Bakugo said, "Now then, what the fuck do _you_ think _you_'_re_ doing trying to date shitty Deku?" Immediately, Mitsuki slapped her son across his face.

"Oi, don't go calling him shitty, you damn brat!" Mitsuki snapped, "Are you trying to make sure I remain single?!"

"He's younger than me, you old hag!" Bakugo pointed out while gesturing to Izuku, "What the hell makes you think-"

"Bakugo, enough," Aizawa called out, interrupting the explosive teen and getting all eyes to focus on him. Sighing, the underground hero said, "I'll leave matters of everyone's personal lives to themselves, but just make sure everyone has everything sorted out, alright? Now then, everyone get back to your seats and stay there." Without another word, Aizawa left with Hizashi to see what Nezu wanted to talk about.

With the teachers gone, Bakugo's posture relaxed a bit as he fished out his wallet. "We're going to have to talk about this after school," Bakugo said as he took out five-thousand yen and handed it over to his mother. Turning to where Kaminari and Mineta were still bowing to Izuku, Bakugo snapped, "Oi, you two! Get back to your desks!"

Both Kaminari and Mineta did so, Kaminari more willingly as he was part of the 'Baku-squad'. While Kaminari got back to his desk alright, Mineta was stopped when Ojiro got up from his desk and stopped him. "Yeah, I need to talk to you about what you did last night, Mineta," the long-tailed teen said to Mineta as he stopped him.

"I said that I was sorry, Ojiro!" Mineta replied, clearly sounding guilty and defensive.

"Like hell you are!" Hagakure shouted from her desk, the silhouette of the U.A. girl's uniform turned to face the infamous pervert of 1-A.

Nodding in agreement with his invisible classmate, Ojiro said, "She's got a point, Mineta. Hagakure and I were having an awesome time until you came in and ruined everything with your inappropriate questions about what Hagakure and I were planning to do." With a neutral yet unreadable expression, Ojiro continued, "Luckily for me, she told me how I can make it up to her for you ruining our first date."

Before Mineta could ask what Ojiro was going to do, the long-tailed teen swung his right foot up into Mineta's secret treasure, dealing a swift kick that scored a critical hit which temporarily stunned and crippled the purple ball-haired boy. Most everyone else in class, especially all of the girls including Mitsuki, all proceeded to laugh at Mineta, with Kyoka, Kaminari and Kirishima even pointing fingers at the infamous pervert while they all laughed at him. In fact, Tokoyami's Dark Shadow came out _just_ to join in on pointing and laughing at Mineta.

Although he wished that it wasn't at the expense of another one of his classmates, Izuku was glad that all attention was off of him, if only temporarily.

END, CHAPTER TWO

Author's notes;

So this chapter helps to get more than one ball rolling. If you'll notice, both Bakugo and Todoroki have their eyes on a different girl in 1-A's rival class 1-B, although only Todoroki's crush has been confirmed. Also, Present Mic mentioning a tournament against a high school that's called Vulcan High helps to lay down some foundation for something that will be in the spotlight over the next couple of chapters. If it helps, the 1-B girl that Bakugo has his eyes on will be heavily hinted at, if not outright confirmed, during this arc of the story, which I'm calling the 'U.A.-v-Vulcan High tournament arc'.

Yes, I'm dividing this story up into arcs, and this is the first one.

But aside from all of that, the relationship between Izuku and Mitsuki is now known to, at the very least, the rest of 1-A, Aizawa and Hizashi. Now that a fair pool of people know, things will really get rolling for Izuku and Mitsuki. Bakugo will undoubtedly be pissed about it all, but the possible reactions out of him are part of the fun, if you think about it.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter three: Tournament prep

Nezu, the quirked animal principal of U.A. High School, was having a staff meeting with a few of the members of the overall U.A. High staff. Among those invited to this meeting were Shota Aizawa, Hizashi Yamada, Toshinori Yagi (the former pro hero All Might), Sekijiro Ken (the 1-B homeroom teacher), Higari Maijima (Power Loader), and Nemuri Kayama. The teachers sat around the large meeting desk as Nezu cleared his throat with a cough before he began.

"Sorry to disturb you all while you were teaching your classes," Nezu began in his usual casual tone, "But there were a few things that I wanted to go over with all of you in relation to the upcoming tournament against Vulcan High."

Sekijiro picked up a stapled file that sat in front of him at his place at the meeting desk, looked over the front page, then looked up from it and over to Nezu before saying, "It looks like the tournament will be a simple elimination style bout composed of one-on-one battles, not unlike what we had back during the Sports Festival."

A copy of the packet that Sekijiro had was also laying in front of Aizawa; the underground hero picked up his copy and skimmed it a bit more than his co-worker skimmed his own copy. "It seems that Vulcan High will be sending eight of their students to take part, while U.A. will be sending in eight of our own students." Setting his copy of the file back down, Aizawa looked to Nezu and said, "So there will be sixteen competetors total. A simple four-round tournament."

"How will we determine which of our students will take part?" Sekijiro asked, "Do we just do a lottery, or something?"

"I actually had a similar thought, Sekijiro," Nezu replied as he turned in his chair to face the wall on his left, prompting everyone else to turn and look. A section of the wall was brought down from what it was covering, revealing a monitor that had a number of names flashing across a series of our thin rectangular boxes. Aizawa recognized the names as those of his students over in class 1-A.

Giving a neutral sounding 'hmph', the underground hero remarked, "So we're starting off with my brats, huh?"

"Well 'a' comes before 'b' in the alphabet, so yes," the white-furred principal replied as he pulled out a small remote control, a simple number that was solid black, rectangular and roughly the size of the average Pez dispenser. There was also a single red button on the remote, which Nezu pressed with his right thumb. This prompted the randomizer program on the monitor to speed up the flashing of the names for a few seconds before all four boxes on screen stopped, each filled with a different name of a class 1-A student;

_Momo Yaoyorozu_

_Izuku Midoriya_

_Eijiro Kirishima_

_Katsuki Bakugo_

Turning back around to face the U.A. staff members he was having his meeting with, Nezu turned to face Aizawa and said, "Well, looks like those are your students that will be taking part in the tournament against the students from Vulcan High."

"I bet that those kids will be thrown for a loop when I tell them that they'll be taking part in the tournament when I announce it to the class as a whole," Aizawa remarked as the other staff members at the meeting looked back to where the names of 1-A students were still displayed on the monitor's randomizer program.

Toshinori was even amused, given that his protégé Izuku was one of the students that was selected by the randomizer program. The former number one hero also felt his heart skip a beat out of worry; after all, the green-haired boy was going to be fighting in a tournament, not just against students from Vulcan High, but potentially against his fellow U.A. students as well. The fact that Bakugo was also selected by the randomizer program also made Toshinori worry, given that Bakugo and Izuku have a less than stellar history together.

Nezu turned to face the monitor again, pointing his remote at it and pressing the red button to take down the names of the 1-A students. Pressing the button again, Nezu had the randomizer program begin flashing the names of the students in Sekijiro's class 1-B. "Now then," Nezu said as the names of 1-B students were flashing along in the randomizer program, "We will see which of Sekijiro's students will be taking part in the tournament against Vulcan High." Nezu pressed the red button on his remote again, making the randomizer program speed up in flashing the names of the 1-B students before the four boxes eventually stopped on a different student's name each, showing who from Sekijiro's homeroom will be taking part in the upcoming tournament;

_Kinoko Komori_

_Itsuka Kendo_

_Ibara Shiozaki_

_Pony Tsunotori_

"Heh," Sekijiro chuckled in a self-amused tone when he and the other staff members saw the results, "Trying to get as many of my girls as possible, huh?"

Returning Sekijiro's self-amused chuckle with one of his own, Nezu replied, "It's not me, it's the randomizer program. It was just as likely to pick any combination of any of your students, just as it was just as likely to pick any combination of students from Aizawa's homeroom class."

"Do we have any information on any of the students from Vulcan High who will be taking part in the upcoming tournament?" Higari asked in a curious tone, gesturing to the principal.

Letting out a sigh, Nezu gently shook his head. "…I have information on one of the boys that will be representing Vulcan High in the upcoming tournament, yes," the quirked animal replied, his tone sounding apprehensive. Pulling out a file, Nezu laid it in front of him at his space at the meeting table. "His name is Akuma Giratina," Nezu began, "And by the lone factor of what I have on him in this brief file, he has me…apprehensive, to say the least." Turning to face where Sekijiro sat, Nezu said, "If only because Akuma is the complete opposite of your student Ibara."

Sekijiro arched a wry eyebrow as he regarded his boss. "What do you mean by that, Nezu?" asked the 1-B homeroom teacher.

"Well according to his file that I have here," Nezu began as he turned his attention to the file he had in front of him before opening it, "Akuma is a Satanist."

When the quirked animal revealed what religion one of the students at Vulcan High practiced, the other U.A. staff members at the meeting table all went wide-eyed with shock. "Not only that," Nezu went on as he continued to read the file on Akuma, "It says here that Akuma's quirk is called 'Hellfire', which lets Akuma conjure and manipulate black flames. According to what Vulcan High claims on the matter, Akuma's quirk is among the more powerful of fire quirks."

"A kid with a quirk that lets him conjure and manipulate black flames," Nemuri began, "And he's a practicing Satanist. I can see why anyone would be apprehensive of this boy at best."

Looking over to where the pro hero Midnight sat, Toshinori remarked, "I can understand any concerns that you or anyone else may have about young Giratina. But one thing that everyone can rest assured of is that the boy fully intends to be a hero, just like all of our students here." When the former number one hero said that, he got a mix of looks, mostly curious ones, from the others who sat at the meeting table.

"You…" Higari began in a tone of curious piqued interest, "…Are familiar with this boy, Toshinori?"

Nodding a bit in the affirmative, Toshinori replied, "I actually met young Giratina a few years ago, back when he was in elementary school. His school at the time was having a special event where a number of pro heroes came by to spend time with the children and inspire them to do their part for the betterment of society." Leaning back in his seat, the former symbol of peace looked up to the ceiling in the meeting room, letting out a resigned sigh. "I was one of the pro heroes at that event," Toshinori continued, "And I had a bit of a meeting with young Giratina due to an incident involving some other students, an incident the teachers were all too quick to try to pin on the boy simply because they thought he was destined to be a villain due to his quirk…"

(FLASHBACK)

"I clearly saw what happened," Tensei Iida said in a firm tone as he spoke to a trio of elementary school teachers, "And with all due respect, I firmly believe that Akuma boy is not one of the children that you should be concerned with disciplining." All Might, in his hero form, stood off to the side as he saw the looks of surprised shock (which looked to be mixed with a little bit of revulsion) as his fellow pro hero spoke his mind on a specific matter to the teachers.

"Mr. Ingenium," began one of the teachers, a mid-forties woman with reddish hair in something of an afro, "Did you not see what that little hell raiser did?"

Keeping his firm expression unchanging, Tensei replied, "What I saw were three boys using their quirks to bully another trio of students, two of which were quirkless, then Akuma came in and used his quirk to make the trio of bullies back off." Letting out a sigh, Tensei continued, "I will grant it that all civilian quirk use in the event that happened earlier is uncalled for, but you must consider that many will have the perspective that Akuma was clearly acting as the hero in that situation, given that-"

"The devil-boy?! A hero?!" the red afro teacher exclaimed in a near horrified tone as she backed up a step or two, interrupting the Turbo Hero in the process, "Have you lost your mind?!"

As the trio of teachers began to try talking over each other in an attempt to convince Tensei to see things from their point of view, the pro hero could only mentally pinch the bridge of his nose. All Might, for his part, fully agreed with what Ingenium said; that Akuma boy, despite what all appearances would suggest, clearly possessed the heart of a hero. He was never reported using his quirk to do what that trio of bullies had done, after all, and the only incident where he actually used his quirk was in the aforementioned incident where he was trying to save a trio of innocent students that were being picked on by the bullies.

Akuma never even expected any sort of reward or anything, and when the symbol of peace himself asked Akuma why he acted in that incident, the boy's answer confirmed for All Might that the teachers were so very wrong about the boy; Akuma admitted that when he saw the bullies use their quirks to pick on the innocent students, he didn't actually think about what to do in that situation, instead his body moved on its own accord to save the innocent students.

Something else about the talk that he had with Akuma made All Might take pause; to his regret, the symbol of peace saw that all of what people had been saying about the boy with black flames, about him being an 'evil devil-boy', was starting to get to him to some degree. In fact, near the end of his talk with All Might, Akuma, while looking up at him with an expression that All Might would not see for years until he met a certain green-haired boy, asked the greatest pro hero a question that All Might admitted later had taken him by surprise;

"_Can I still be a hero_, _even if I_'_m evil_?"

The fact that Akuma had asked that, had shown that he was starting to give in to the unwarranted jeering and hateful stereotyping, momentarily made All Might drop his otherwise always present smile. In fact, All Might later personally spoke to the elementary school's principal to discuss the matter of Akuma being stereotyped discriminated against simply because he had a supposedly 'evil' quirk, but the principal replied with a response that essentially meant he agreed with the teachers and that he'd expel Akuma if given half a chance.

All Might, with Ingenium tagging along since he was there as well and could give his two yen on the matter, reported the school to the proper authorities, ensuring that such behavior against all persons at the school would never be a recurring problem. It would constantly sicken All Might to his very core that it took swift government intervention to end the blatant stereotyping and discrimination of students at that elementary school on the basis of what quirks the students had, but at least the problem was ended, and students of truly good intent, such as Akuma, would no longer have to face undue prejudice.

(FLASHBACK OVER)

With a regretful sigh, Toshinori remembered his chance encounter with the Satanist student all those years ago. The former symbol of peace had hoped that his and (the former) Ingenium's efforts would save the boy from giving in to what others automatically assume of him, but to his great regret, it seemed to him that Akuma had fully embraced the 'evil persona' that others had taken to assigning to him. However, Toshinori was still not without hope for the boy; he still had a strong desire to be a hero, after all.

"…We should not make any assumptions about young Giratina," Toshinori said to the other U.A. staff members at the meeting table, "Just because he _looks_ liable to tread down the path of villainy doesn't mean he actually _will_ go such a route. He wouldn't be attending a hero high school such as Vulcan High if he didn't want to be a hero, after all."

The others at the meeting table looked around at each other for a bit until Aizawa spoke up, saying, "Toshinori's got a point. Appearances can be deceiving, and someone who simply looks or acts a certain way isn't automatically a villain. I mean, look at Endeavor." That last comment from the underground hero got a round of laughter from everyone at the meeting table, other than Toshinori, who simply shook his head and wished that everyone would stop thinking that the current number one pro hero was a jerk. Enji Todoroki was not a jerk, and the former symbol of peace had no idea why so many people would think that.

Clearing his throat loud enough to get everyone to settle back down, Nezu said once all eyes were on him, "Yes, yes. Now then, since we've gotten the initial points of the upcoming tournament against Vulcan High covered, you all are free to leave to resume doing what you were doing prior to me interrupting whatever lessons you had." Turning to face Aizawa and Sekijiro, the quirked animal principal continued, "Aizawa, Sekijiro, make sure you tell your respective students that were selected by the randomizer that they will be competing, as well as what taking part will entail."

"Well that goes without saying, sir," Sekijiro remarked, the hint of feigned disappointment at being underestimated in his tone suggesting that he was a bit amused.

Sighing in a mildly exasperated tone as he got up from his seat, Aizawa said, "Here's hoping that my class is still in one piece when I get there. I am not looking forward to the chaos that are my students, as well as Mitsuki Bakugo."

Nemuri, an eyebrow arched in piqued interest, said, "Mitsuki? Isn't that Katsuki's mother? What is she doing in your classroom?"

Cracking his neck a bit while pushing against the right side a bit with his right hand, Aizawa said, "Mitsuki randomly burst into the classroom simply to borrow five-thousand yen from her son." After a bit of a pause, the underground hero added in a disinterested and indifferent tone as he turned to face Toshinori, "Oh, and Mitsuki is dating your protégé now, apparently."

To say that Toshinori, who coughed up a good bit of blood upon hearing that Izuku was now apparently an item with a woman a little more than twice his (Izuku's) age, was surprised to be hearing about that would be an understatement. Similarly, most of the others at the meeting table also expressed varying reactions, and Nemuri drew a bit of a scolding from Higari when she asked why she couldn't have a boyfriend that young if Mitsuki Bakugo could. Through all of this, Nezu simply sipped from a yunomi teacup, amused by the antics of humans.

* * *

Back in the 1-A classroom, the majority of the class was in something of an uproar, given that Mitsuki Bakugo, the mother of their classmate Katsuki Bakugo, had just announced that she was looking into dating 1-A student Izuku Midoriya. As a side note, Minoru Mineta had barely been able to pick himself off of the floor after he was dealt a swift kick to his 'little Mineta' courtesy of his classmate Mashirao Ojiro, but he was still very much stunned by the very crippling attack, and was currently sitting at his desk, laying face-down on the surface as he tried to recover.

"You cannot be fucking serious," Bakugo said as he continued to stare at his mother. Gesturing to Izuku, the explosive teen continued, "You're seriously interested in dating fucking Deku?!"

"Shove it, brat," Mitsuki snapped, "I'll have you know that-" The ashy-haired woman was cut off when the door leading into the 1-A classroom opened, prompting everyone to turn their attention and see that Aizawa had returned.

Getting over to the table situated in the front of the classroom, Aizawa looked out over everyone, seeing that things were relatively alright. "Sorry about getting called out of the classroom randomly like that during the middle of class," the underground hero began, "But Principal Nezu wanted to discuss a few points with some of the teachers here about an upcoming tournament where students from U.A. will be competing against students from Vulcan High. It'll be a basic four round tournament, very similar to the one-on-one matches from the sports festival."

The mention of that tournament made everyone in the classroom momentarily forget about everything else. Raising a hand quickly into the air, Tenya called out, "Aizawa-sensei!" Seeing this, Aizawa pointed to the class representative of 1-A. Since he was called upon, Tenya stood up from where he sat at his desk. "How many U.A. students will be taking part in the tournament?"

"A total of eight students from U.A. will be in the tournament, along with eight students from Vulcan High," Aizawa began to explain to his students and Mitsuki, "Part of the purpose of the meeting I just got back from with Principal Nezu and some of the other teachers was to figure out which U.A. students would be competing."

"Yahoo!" Mina Ashido cheered as she pumped both of her fists into the air, "I can't wait to show some Vulcan High jerks what I'm made of!"

Pointing at Mina, Aizawa said, "Chill, Ashido, you aren't one of the competing U.A. students." As the pink-skinned hero in training slumped back down into her seat in a defeated manner, Aizawa said, "Principal Nezu used a randomizer program to select four students from this class, then another four students from 1-B, to be the eight U.A. students that will be competing in the tournament against Vulcan High. The students that will be taking part in the tournament are Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, Kirishima and Bakugo from this class, and Komori, Kendo, Shiozaki and Tsunotori from class 1-B. I suspect that Vlad will be telling his students that are entered about their participation as well as that of those from this class that I announced."

"Alright!" Kirishima cheered as he pumped a fist into the air, "I get to fight in the tournament!"

"Relax, Kirishima," Aizawa remarked, then continued when the red-haired boy relaxed, "Given that this tournament is essentially a pissing match between U.A. and Vulcan High, I suspect that both schools would use the end result of this tournament as bragging rights. That being said, I hope that those whose names I called will work to try to bring home a win for U.A."

Giving the 1-A homeroom teacher a thumbs-up, Mitsuki declared, "Well damn straight U.A. is going to be bringing home the win! After all, you got both my son _and_ my boyfriend taking part in all of the action! How can the tournament end in any way other than sunshine for U.A.?"

"Mrs. Bakugo, we still haven't officially settled that business!" Izuku pointed out, clearly panicked about the fact that Kacchan's mom was still trying to hook up with him.

* * *

Later that day after classes at U.A. were done for the day, Izuku and Mitsuki, along with a clearly annoyed Bakugo, could be seen sitting in the Midoriya living room. Sitting in a plush leather armchair across from the two-seater sofa that Izuku and Mitsuki occupied was Inko, the mother of Izuku. The four people in the apartment (actually just three; Bakugo just sat off to the side with a pissed off look on his face), had just finished some important discussions concerning the possible hooking-up of Izuku with Mitsuki.

"Wow, Inko," Mitsuki remarked in a casual and mildly amused tone, "I still can't believe that you're really okay with me and Izuku being together."

"I'll admit," Inko began to explain, still sounding a bit resigned, "There are far worse people out there for Izuku. At least with you I know that someone that I know and trust is with my son."

Mitsuki, with a big grin on her face, nodded twice in agreement. "Aw hells yeah, Inko. Anyway, now that we got that stuff out of the way, I figured that we ought to discuss this upcoming big event between U.A. and Vulcan High, given that our respective sons are both going to be taking part in the festivities."

Inko, with a curious look on her face, looked at her close friend, tilting her head to the side a bit in the process. "Big event between U.A. and another high school?" the full-bodied woman said in a curious tone, "What do you mean?"

"Aizawa-sensei announced it in class earlier today, mom," Izuku began to explain, "Me and Kacchan, as well as our classmates Yaoyorozu and Kirishima, will be competing in a tournament against eight hero students from Vulcan High. Four students from U.A.'s class 1-B will also be taking part as well."

"Just think of the one-on-one fights from the sports festival," Bakugo remarked indifferently from where he sat off to the side.

Turning to face Mitsuki, Inko asked, "And how did you know about this, Mitsuki?"

"She randomly stormed into the class to borrow five-thousand yen from me, then announced to everyone that she wanted Deku, then Aizawa-sensei left to go to a meeting to discuss things about the tournament with other teachers and the principal," Bakugo explained, "She remained in the classroom until Aizawa-sensei came back and told everyone about the tournament."

"I…" Inko remarked in a mildly bemused tone, "…See."

Mitsuki opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, but she was cut off when a ringtone went off. She, as well as Izuku and Inko, all turned to see Bakugo, who had fished out his phone to see that he got a text. "…Hey Deku," Bakugo called out without looking up from his phone, "Everyone wants to get together to discuss possible strategies you, me and the other U.A. competitors could use to try and help win against Vulcan High. Apparently, Kirishima and Kaminari even convinced 1-B to come along."

Nodding to Bakugo a few times in understanding, Izuku then turned to face his mother. "Sorry mom, but Kacchan and I have to go meet with our classmates about the tournament," the green-haired cinnamon roll explained. Inko, as well as Mitsuki, both nodded as they excused their respective sons to go to the 'war meeting' (as Mitsuki called it) with the other class 1-A students and the students of class 1-B. Leaving the Midoriya apartment, Izuku and Bakugo proceeded to make their way over to where the other students were meeting.

Along the way, Bakugo punched Izuku in the side of his arm, for reasons that should be obvious.

* * *

Both Izuku and Bakugo, who were wondering where their classmates and fellow students could find a meeting place large enough for a combined forty students, got their answer when they were met up by Yaoyorozu, who pulled up next to the boys in a limo as they were walking on the sidewalk, and told them to get in because she was taking them to her place, were the rest of 1-A and all of 1-B were already waiting.

The grand estate owned by Yaoyorozu's family simply eclipsed that of any other person that either Izuku or Bakugo could think of. The two boys followed their classmate through a large pair of double doors that led into a grand dining room, in which the other thirty-seven students were all already waiting. Many of the students were enjoying fine food that was prepared by the staff that was employed by Yaoyorozu's family.

Although there were very few things that he would agree with Izuku on, Bakugo will admit that it was weird seeing everyone in their class, as well as all of 1-B, wearing casual outfits, rather than wearing either their U.A. uniforms or their hero costumes. In fact, Bakugo even had a bit of trouble recognizing some of the students due to everyone (yes, including Izuku, Yaoyorozu and himself) wearing casual outfits; as an example, Bakugo got Sero mixed up with Yui Kodai from 1-B, even though Yui and Sero were different genders, and Yui wore a skirt with a plaid pattern whereas Sero wore a pair of shorts whose legs reached halfway down his shins.

"Well, well, well," Neito Monoma said in his usual condescending tone as Izuku, Bakugo and Yaoyorozu walked in, "It figures that everyone in 1-B was here before-" The blonde boy was cut off by a chop to the back of his head, courtesy of Itsuka, who used her quirk to enlarge her right hand before striking Monoma in the back of his head.

"Sorry about Monoma trying being a hysteric holler monkey again," the 1-B class representative apologized to the boys and Yaoyorozu as the latter closed the large double doors behind her so that 1-A and 1-B could have their 'war meeting' in secret. Clapping her hands, both of which were normal sized, together in anticipation, Itsuka said, "Now then, let's get down to business on how me and the others taking part in the tournament will be kicking some Vulcan High butt."

"In addition to myself," Yaoyorozu began as she addressed Itsuka, "My classmates Midoriya, Bakugo and Kirishima will be taking part in the tournament, alongside you and your classmates Shiozaki, Tsunotori and Komori." Out of everyone else in the room, only Tokoyami, Hagakure and Yugo Aoyama noticed Yaoyorozu shudder a bit involuntarily upon saying Komori's name. Not one of those three 1-A students held what they noticed of Yaoyorozu against her.

Tapping her right hand, curled into a fist, into her left hand's palm, Yaoyorozu said, "That being said, the eight of us that are taking part ought to go over what we have to work with. It would also help if we were to get some practice in before the tournament."

Tenya, raising a hand, said, "If I may be so bold as to offer a point, Yaoyorozu?" After the wealthy girl gave him the go ahead to proceed, Tenya said, "Even though we're all hoping for a U.A. win at the upcoming tournament, there's still a chance that there will be a few matches that will pit U.A. students against each other. That being said, those who are going to be taking part shouldn't spar with each other, as such sparring may give away some of what they might do in the tournament should they be paired to face off against each other."

Jerking a thumb at Tenya, Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu said, "He's got a point. You guys who are taking part shouldn't be giving away your big moves to each other, otherwise you'll form counters to everything that each other has. That might screw you guys over if you wind up facing any of those jerks from Vulcan High later on."

Nodding in agreement, Yaoyorozu said, "Exactly what I was thinking, actually." Clapping her hands together, Yaoyorozu continued, "All eight of us who will be in the tournament will spar with four other among the remaining thirty-two, so as to help us prepare. Luckily for us, my family's estate had a very expansive backyard which has ample room for all forty of us to take care of the necessary training."

"Ooh, ooh, Yaoyorozu!" Hagakure said as she jumped up and down while waving around her right hand, "Which four of us will help you spar? I wanna be on your team if that's okay!"

Smiling a bit in an appreciative and mildly amused manner, Yaoyorozu said, "I think we should be able to work out who will help who with getting ready for the tournament. And yes, I will be happy to have you help me with my training." As the invisible girl cheered again as she did more jumps into the air, the rest of the 1-A and 1-B students proceeded to mill about, either asking to be on training teams or asking those not taking part in the tournament to help them.

As he and Mineta looked around as the groups were forming up, Kaminari remarked, "I wonder whose training team I'll end up joining."

"I wouldn't mind helping one of the girls," Mineta remarked in his typical perverted tone, "Especially Pony from 1-B. I mean, have you _seen_ that body? Not to mention how kinky it is for a girl to have hooves and-" Before Mineta could get one more word out, Bakugo dealt a swift kick to the infamous pervert's hidden treasure, scoring a critical hit.

After Mineta fell over onto the floor face first, Bakugo grabbed him by the back of his shirt and picked him up. "I need to work on my kicks for the tournament," the explosive teen remarked, "And you're going to help me, Grape Head." Stopping in place, Bakugo turned his head to look at Kaminari. "…Since Kirishima is also in the tournament," Bakugo began, "He can't be on my training team. That being said, you wanna join? I already have Sero and Pinky. Grape Head here will give me all four training partners that I need."

Kaminari couldn't help but give an amused smirk. Shooting Bakugo a thumbs-up, the electric teen said, "Oh, just try and stop me, dude." This time it was Bakugo who gave an amused smirk, amused (and secretly grateful for) by his squad member's eagerness to help him.

…

Izuku ended up getting his friends Uraraka, Tenya and Todoroki, along with Juzo Honenuki from class 1-B, on his training team. "Wait, wait, wait," Juzo said in a confused tone as Izuku jumped up to avoid his Softening quirk, "What do you mean Bakugo's mom is now your girlfriend?"

"It wasn't my idea, trust me," the green-eyed boy replied as he landed on safe ground that was unaffected by Juzo's quirk. Punching an icicle created by Todoroki's quirk into small icy chunks, Izuku continued, "It's just that after I helped her when I found her stinking drunk while sitting on a bench, things just sort of happened."

"How did Bakugo react when he found out, assuming that he did?" the skeletal-faced teen asked as he ran around Uraraka to try again at getting a strike against Izuku in.

Once again jumping to avoid ground affected by Juzo's quirk, Izuku replied, "Oh, just as you would expect out of Kacchan. Thankfully Aizawa-sensei told the class about the tournament, and that Kacchan is one of those entered."

"As are you," Todoroki remarked to his friend, "Or have you forgotten why Uraraka, Tenya, Juzo and I are helping you train right now?"

"No, I didn't forget," Izuku replied, "And I'm well aware that there's a chance that I may end up being pitted against Kacchan at some point during the tournament." After Izuku landed from a jump, he held both of his hands up, signaling for his training partners to stop. Looking at all of them, the green-eyed teen said, "That's why I'm counting on all of you to help me get ready, in case I do have to fight against Kacchan."

Uraraka, Todoroki and Tenya all nodded in agreement, the smiles on their faces showing that they are willing to back their friend's efforts in the tournament against the students from Vulcan High. Juzo, the lone person in the group from 1-B, also nodded and smiled to show his support for the green-haired cinnamon roll. "You see, why can't 1-A and 1-B get along like this all the time?" Juzo remarked, "I mean, you guys are actually pretty chill. I don't know what crawled up Monoma's ass and died."

END, CHAPTER THREE

Author's notes;

Who here has noticed the running gag that has happened once every chapter so far? Putting all of that aside, I wanted to use this chapter for multiple things, such as officializing the Izuku/Mitsuki couple that I have for this story, getting some training/bonding in between 1-A and 1-B, and to give a bit of background to one of the Vulcan High students that will be playing a very noticeable role over the course of this arc.

By the way, yes; the 1-A and 1-B students were all wearing their casual outfits (aka their civilian outfits) during the training at Yaoyorozu's family's estate. I happen to think that Juzo's casual outfit looks awesome, especially those baggy cargo pants he's got.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter four: The tournament part one-Arrivals from Vulcan

Over the last few days since Aizawa and Sekijiro told them about the tournament against Vulcan High, the students of U.A.'s classes 1-A and 1-B were helping their respective members that were entered to get ready to bring home a win for U.A. Izuku, Bakugo, Kirishima, Yaoyorozu, Itsuka, Kinoko, Ibara and Pony all had gotten in a good bit of practice and training over those few couple of days leading up to the tournament. On the morning of the tournament, those eight were all being reassured by their respective classmates as all of them were in a main reception area of the stadium where the tournament was going to be held.

"Hey Ibara, Itsuka, Kinoko, I have a quick question for you girls," Togaru Kamakiri said as he faced his classmates in 1-B. Taking a look at the three girls in question, one could see that both Ibara and Itsuka were wearing their respective PE uniforms, and Kinoko was wearing a copy of her casual wear outfit, a frilly long-sleeved dress with matching socks, cute shoes that went very well with the outfit as a whole, and even a headband that looked like a row of little mushrooms.

Gesturing to the three girls, Togaru asked, "Why are none of you in your hero costumes whereas everyone else from U.A. taking part is in theirs?" Indeed, looking around one could see that all four of the 1-A competitors and Pony were in their respective hero costumes.

"My hero costume is in the wash," Itsuka explained, "And I doubt that one of my copies of the U.A. girl's uniform would last through the tournament." Gesturing to herself to point out the PE uniform she wore, Itsuka continued, "I figured that one of my copies of the PE uniform would be an acceptable substitute."

"My reason is actually the same as Itsuka's," Ibara remarked, a hint of embarrassment in her expression, "Although I thought that my hero costume would be clean." Turning to regard her mushroom-themed classmate, Ibara asked, "How about you, Kinoko?"

Gesturing to the outfit she wore, Kinoko said, "I only had a few copies of my usual dress. Everything else is in the laundry."

Tetsutetsu, with a curious look on his face, said, "It's weird how a lot of us have multiple copies of various outfits."

"Well hey, if having multiples of the same get-up works for someone, then who are we to question it?" Kirishima asked, giving his counterpart in 1-B a thumbs-up. In the action of raising his right arm to give Tetsutetsu a thumbs-up, Kirishima drew attention to the fact that he was wearing a variation of his hero costume that was without the long black sleeves.

Pointing to Kirishima's bare arms, Tetsutetsu asked, "Didn't your hero costume come with sleeves, Kirishima?"

"They got badly damaged during the sparring I did with Shihai, remember?" Kirishima replied as he jerked a thumb to class 1-B's Shihai Kuroiro, "He was on the team that helped me train, same as you, Tetsutetsu." As the two hard quirk heroes in training talked, the pitch black-skinned boy of 1-B merely looked to the side and scoffed, as if he didn't care his quirk had done sufficient damage to the sleeves of Kirishima's hero costume that Kirishima had to go back to a sleeveless variation for the time being.

Clapping her hands together to get everyone's attention, Itsuka said, "Well other than a few minor details that have no real say in the matter, I think that the last few days really helped all of us taking part in the tournament against Vulcan High." Pumping her right fist into the air, the class 1-B representative said, "I have a feeling that U.A. will be taking home the win today!"

The students of U.A.'s classes 1-A and 1-B all gave an all-around cheer that showed that they were not intending to let their school down. However, partway through the cheering, all forty of the U.A. students were cut off from their cheering when they heard some slow, loud clapping that was clearly sarcastic. Turning around to look, the U.A. students saw a group of various high schoolers, wearing uniforms that denoted them as students of a high school other than U.A.

The source of the clapping came from a blonde, fair-skinned boy who had a conceited look that could give the one Monoma had going a run for its money. His blonde hair, of a similar shade as what Monoma had, was worn straight and long, about as long as Setsuna Tokage's hair. His eyes also seemed to possess similar levels of energy as Setsuna's, although the clear ego the boy had made this come off as somewhat uneasy for the U.A. students.

Before any of the U.A. students could ask who this boy and his friends were, he stepped forward and held a hand out to them in something of a gesture of salutations. "So this is the best that U.A. has to offer, hmm?" the blonde boy began, "Wow, and here I thought that Vulcan High actually had something to be afraid of in this tournament."

Bakugo, having already had plenty of crap such as this from 1-B's resident hysteric holler monkey Monoma, stopped forward, his right hand pulled back to throw a punch at a moment's notice. And since Bakugo was wearing his grenade gauntlets, such a punch was bound to have a notable impact. "Who the fuck are you and what the fuck crawled up your ass and died?" snarled the explosive teen at the conceited boy with long blonde hair.

Giving a conceited, unimpressed 'hmph' as he shrugged, the blonde boy said, "I suppose that I ought to give you the courtesy of giving you my name." Jerking a thumb at his chest, the boy said, "My name's Yuki Hojo, and as you can see my classmates here and I are from Vulcan High, the hero school that will be winning this little tournament between our two schools, just so you know." The conceited blonde boy's declaration drew a bark of laughter from Bakugo.

"Yeah right!" Bakugo growled, "Like any of you stands a chance of winning the tournament!" Jerking a thumb over his shoulder to point out the other seven U.A. students in the tournament, Bakugo said, "If anyone is winning the whole lot today, it's one of us from U.A.!" Pointing his right index finger at Yuki and the other Vulcan High students, Bakugo sneered, "You extras from Vulcan High are just here to help us from at U.A. show off what we can do!"

To say that Izuku was surprised by what Bakugo just did would be an understatement; not the fact that the explosive teen was bragging while simultaneously putting down the students from Vulcan High, but because Bakugo said that the tournament was going to be won by a student from U.A. Not just him (although as a U.A. student Bakugo _did_ qualify) and only him, but any of the students from U.A. will be the one standing in the first place spot on the podium. Bakugo had truly come a rather long way from the boy he used to be, and for that the green-eyed boy thought that Bakugo ought to be commended.

It was at Bakugo's declaration of believing that U.A. will be taking home the win that Yuki gave a haughty, conceited laugh. "Oh, that is rich," the long blonde-haired boy remarked, his amused tone clearly making him look as if he thought of the U.A. students as peasants to his royal prince, "If anything, I'm glad that this school is teaching you all the basics of comedy. The party I plan to throw to celebrate a Vulcan High student winning today can use some entertainment!"

"Well aren't you jumping to conclusions," Itsuka remarked, giving Yuki a look of stern consideration, "You do realize that U.A. is the top ranked hero school in Japan, don't you? You ought to be more careful than to underestimate us."

"You might want to take Yuki's word for it," a female voice from among the Vulcan High group said getting the attention of the U.A. students in the process, the somewhat timid tone making it clear she was one of the proverbial sheep that had to look up to the conceited blonde boy, "He's one of the best that Vulcan High has to offer. But that's kind of to be expected, given that Yuki's mother is Vulcan High's principal."

The U.A. students looked over the group of Vulcan High students to see who it was that had spoken up just now. It was Mezo Shoji who first spotted the girl that had spoken up; she was a fair-skinned girl around the same height as Uraraka, with pitch black hair in the same length and style as the zero-gravity girl. Interestingly enough, this girl had cat-like ears sticking out from her hair over where the ears on a normal person would be located, and a black furred cat tail that swished slowly back and forth.

Another thing that stuck out about this girl with cat-like features was that she was very clearly well-fed; given how plump she was, she had to weigh approximately four-hundred pounds. With a mildly cowed expression, the fat cat girl continued, "Yuki's never been wrong before, so there isn't any reason to start thinking that he's wrong now." As she spoke, the fat cat girl tried to move so that she stood in the very back of the group of Vulcan High students, as if she did not want any of the U.A. students to see her.

With a self-amused smug expression on his face, Yuki nodded while saying, "Well spoken, Sakaki. Well spoken."

"So that fucking explains why you're so full of hot air," Bakugo snarled at the conceited blonde boy of Vulcan High, "Your mom's the principal! You must think that you're some sort of prince that runs the damn place as your personal stomping grounds, huh?!" Giving the arrogant son of Vulcan High's principal a very rude gesture, Bakugo said, "Well screw you, asshole!"

"Bakugo," Ibara began as she walked towards the explosive teen, laying her hand on his should from behind when she was close enough to him, "You mustn't lose your temper with them. They are simply lost souls who need to be saved by Christ, is all."

"What a fucking load of bullshit," a male voice from the Vulcan High group snarled, sounding both angry and, if the shudder that went up Ibara's spine when she heard that voice just now is any indication, straight up evil. And the devout Christian of class 1-B was not the only one who shuddered upon hearing that male voice; a good number of the group of U.A. students tensed up. Very few of the U.A. students, such as Bakugo for example, didn't shudder out of fright.

His interest piqued by the male voice's foul languaged words, Bakugo looked over the Vulcan High student crowd to see if he could find who it was that dismissed Ibara's pious suggestion. It didn't take long until the explosive teen found the boy in question, given that said boy stuck out in the group like a sore thumb due to being the only one in that group who wasn't wearing the Vulcan High uniform.

It was a fair-skinned boy that looked to be as tall as Kojiro Bondo of class 1-B. He had pitch black hair as long as Pony's and as wild and unruly as the messy mop of green that Izuku had. He wore a crimson red metal headband that was similar to the mask that Kirishima had, but it was only a thin band that went over the area between his hairline and forehead. Two little pointy horns, both very slightly curved up, stuck out, giving the look of being devil horns.

As for his outfit, the tall boy wore a form-fitting black men's tank top that had a large red pentagram in a circle in the middle, with the star in the circle being upside down. Also, the tall boy wore a pair of black baggy cargo pants (with red trimming) held up with a black belt with a seatbelt buckle for a belt buckle and a pair of black boots with crimson red boot laces. As for accessories, the tall boy wore a simple upside down pentagram necklace, and from each earlobe dangled a single upside down cross earring, both earrings being made of a pitch black metal.

Giving the U.A. students as a whole an unamused glare that shook most of them to their very cores, the tall boy said, "There's no saving you U.A. students taking part in the tournament today from the beat down that we'll be giving you." Turning his attention to Ibara specifically, the tall boy gave her an angry, downright evil-looking snarling expression as he said, "And as for you, Nun Girl, take your bible and _shove it up your ass_."

"Dude, the hell is your problem?!" Tetsutetsu snapped at the tall boy from Vulcan High, very much unamused with the tall boy personally attacking Ibara in such a manner.

Yuki have an amused chuckle before facing the U.A. students while gesturing to his tall schoolmate. "Oh, you'll have to forgive him," the conceited blonde boy said in a tone that was not worried about offending anyone in the least, "The bus ride from Vulcan High to this dump that you call a school has left him a little cranky, and he tends to get annoyed whenever someone tries to quote unquote 'save him', so to speak."

Pointing an accusing finger at the tall boy, Kyoka Jiro said to Yuki, "I wasn't aware that your mother accepted villains as students at Vulcan High."

It was the rock music lover's words that made Yuki's otherwise unfaltering smug smile drop into a frown for the first time. "Now that was uncalled for," the conceited blonde boy scolded as he returned the pointing accusing finger, "He is by no means a villain, and I hope for your sake that you aren't paired up to fight him in the tournament. Otherwise he will make you pay dearly for even insinuating that he's a villain."

"I'm not in the tournament," Jiro remarked, "The rest of my classmates and I are going to watch the four of us that are entered take part."

Yuki, arching an eyebrow in confusion, looked at the U.A. students with a curious look. "Only four of you will be fighting against the eight that Vulcan High is entering?" the conceited blonde boy asked.

"No, we're entering eight as well," Izuku clarified, "Jiro meant that four of our classmates from class 1-A are taking part, alongside four of the students in class 1-B."

A look of understanding entered Yuki's expression. Nodding a few times, Yuki said, "As, so that's what she meant. Alright, then." Turning around while gesturing for his schoolmates to accompany him, Yuki said as he turned his head slightly to regard the U.A. students, "Well then U.A. dweebs, it was not much of a pleasure to meet you, although it was a pleasure all the same. Look forward to seeing a Vulcan High student win the tournament today!" After the conceited blonde boy spoke his bit, he and the other Vulcan High students took their leave.

After the students from Vulcan High were gone, the 1-A and 1-B students all relaxed a bit, as if they were all holding in some tension. "What the hell was wrong with that jerk?" Itsuka asked as she pointed in the direction that Yuki and his schoolmates took off in, "And here I thought that Monoma was a pain in the ass to deal with on the regular basis."

"Oi," the hysteric holler monkey of 1-B remarked, sounding a mix of bemused and offended.

Gently shaking her head, Ibara said, "I don't think that Yuki fellow is who any of us should be concerned about. We ought to be more wary of his tall associate who was giving off the air of being a complete and total devil."

Pounding his fists together, Bakugo snarled, "To hell with those Vulcan High pricks!" As little explosions, roughly as potent as the little poppers people throw at each other's feet, emanated from his fists, Bakugo continued, "If they think that they can talk to us like that and get away with it, then it's up to us to set them straight! We're U.A., for crying out loud!" Pumping his right fist into the air, the explosive teen shouted, "Now who's with me?!"

The other seven U.A. students entered in the tournament, as well as the thirty-two classmates that weren't entered but were going to watch, all cheered as they all joined in pumping fists into the air. As the U.A. students worked themselves up, Izuku found himself further impressed by all of the progress that Bakugo was making as a person; then again, it was probably a school pride thing, and if there's one thing that can be considered by many as a fatal mistake, it was attacking any of Bakugo's pride. Still, Izuku could not deny that the explosive teen was channeling it into something constructive and beneficial to his fellow U.A. students.

Izuku wondered how Mitsuki, Bakugo's mom and the person that Izuku found himself dating now, would make of her son's growing as a person.

* * *

The bleachers in the stadium, where the sports festival matches from a while ago took place interestingly enough, were filled to capacity, with the roaring cheer given by the audience being at a near-deafening level. From the commentator's box, Aizawa and Hizashi could see all of the matches and give commentary over the course of the tournament (although that will mostly be Hizashi's shtick). Standing on a mini stage off to the side of the arena that the students of U.A. and Vulcan High will be fighting each other in, Nemuri, in her hero costume, stood by to act as a referee for the tournament.

Looking around, Izuku and the other U.A. students that were taking part in the tournament couldn't help but be both amazed and humbled by how many people had come out just to cheer them on. …Well, Bakugo wasn't amazed and humbled, just amused in his own way. But he still liked how there was so many people that had come out here today to watch him kick some Vulcan High ass. The explosive teen was going to give the crowd the show that they had clearly come out here to see.

While the U.A. students looked around, Izuku saw something that caught his eye and made him cringe a bit in embarrassment; his mother Inko, along with Bakugo's mother/Izuku's girlfriend Mitsuki, were in the crowd that made up the audience. Izuku could tell because Mitsuki was standing up while holding a sign above her head that was to support both Izuku and Bakugo, and she was cheering as loud as humanly possible; Inko just so happened to be sitting next to the loud, ashy-haired woman.

Izuku wasn't the only U.A. student who saw Inko and Mitsuki in the audience; the other seven that were also taking part in the tournament saw as well. Seeing his own mother cheer for that nerd Deku made Bakugo scoff as he turned his head away. He would have given more of his usual attitude in response, but he was more focused on giving Vulcan High a big middle finger.

Besides which, the 1-B girl that Bakugo found he had fallen in love with was there in the stadium, and closer than he would have expected (not that he would complain about her being close to him). All of the rallying that the explosive teen did he hoped made him look good in front of her. Maybe if he straight up won the tournament, Bakugo would look awesome enough in front of her, and then he might even be able to get her to go out with him. Yeah, that was a nice thought that the explosive teen had.

"Alright, everybody!" Hizashi announced from where he and Aizawa sat, giving off his usual levels of energy and excitement, "Let's get this interschool student hero tournament between the home team U.A. and the visitors Vulcan High started! Now who's up to bat first?"

"The mega monitor opposite of us will randomize all the matches for all of the rounds," Aizawa said, the air he gave off being the complete and total opposite of what Hizashi was giving off, "That way, no one will have any idea who they will face until some of the very last matches of the tournament, where a simple process of elimination will give people an idea on what some of the last fights will look like."

Pressing a red button on a display in front of him at his place at the counter he and Hizashi sat at, the underground hero said, "Now then, let's see who will be in the first fight in the first round of the U.A. versus Vulcan High tournament." Pictures of all sixteen of the competitors began to flash over the large jumbo-tron, two at a time and all of them always randomized, at a very fast pace. The pictures flashed by quickly for a few seconds before they slowed down, slowing down more and more until they finally stopped, and the match-up drew a lot of excited cheering for the people there to see U.A. win it all;

_Izuku Midoriya vs_. _Sakaki Yamamaya_

The green-haired cinnamon roll was surprised to see that not only was he fighting in the first match of the tournament, but that his opponent was the fat cat girl from Vulcan High. Similarly, everyone in the stadium was excited to see that the first match was pitting a U.A. student against a Vulcan High student. "Well alright, folks!" Hizashi cheered over the intercom system, "We got our first them versus us match of the tournament! Let's see who will be the first to bring in some glory for their respective school!"

"Hey Deku," Bakugo said before Izuku could walk towards the arena platform. Turning around, the green-eyed boy looked at his friend turned bully turned rival turned semi-friend with a curious look. Pointing in the direction of the area platform, Bakugo said, "Don't let your guard down, ya hear?" Izuku, once again impressed with the improvements in the explosive teen's attitude, nodded in the affirmative before turning back around to walk up to the arena platform.

* * *

To Izuku's relief, he was able to defeat Sakaki. From what the green-eyed boy would later learn about her, Sakaki's quirk, which was called Fat Cat, was the result of her father's quirk, which gave him cat ears, a cat tail and moderately increased physical strength and agility, mixing with her mother's quirk, which gave her increased physical strength and resistance to most forms of attack but had the side effect of making her rather fat, which resulted in decreased agility.

The agility decrease and increase canceled each other out, and Sakaki got everything else. That meant that she had notably enhanced physical strength, due to both of her parents' quirks having strength attributes. However, Izuku also had enhanced strength thanks to One for All, and unlike Sakaki, the green-haired cinnamon roll suffered no debuff to his agility. All that Izuku had to do was speed around a bit while leading Sakaki on, wait for her to get exhausted, and then knock her out with a five percent Detroit Smash.

As the fat cat girl laid knocked out on the arena platform, Nemuri cracked her whip loudly before pointing it at the arena platform. "Sakaki Yamamaya has been defeated!" the eighteen only hero announced, "The winner is Izuku Midoriya!" The crowd went wild with cheering as the first winner of a match in the tournament was announced. Those on the side of U.A. were particularly excited, Mitsuki especially so, since she just saw her new boyfriend kick some ass.

As medics laid Sakaki on a stretcher to take her to see Recovery Girl, Hizashi said over the intercom system for the stadium, "Well that was one hell of a match! Now then, who's up for the round one fight two match?" At that prompting, Aizawa pressed the same red button, causing the jumbo-tron screen to flash the pitcures of the competitors, aside from Izuku and Sakaki since they already went. After a few seconds of seeing fourteen different faces flash across the large screen, the randomizer eventually settled on the second pair;

_Itsuka Kendo vs_. _Eijiro Kirishima_

"Wow, two of U.A.'s own have to go up against each other?" Hizashi said over the intercom system, "Talk about crazy!"

"There was never any guarantee that all of the matches was going to see a U.A. student fighting a Vulcan High student," Aizawa pointed out, "There's a chance that U.A. students will have to fight each other, and similarly there's a chance that Vulcan High students will have to fight each other." Leaning back in his seat slightly, the underground hero said, "That's the beauty of things being randomized."

Down in the stadium, after Izuku got off of the arena platform, he walked up to where the other U.A. students in the tournament were waiting. "Good luck, you two," Izuku said to Itsuka and Kirishima, who both nodded in acknowledgement as they proceeded to walk over to the arena platform so they could have their match.

After Itsuka and Kirishima left to go to the arena platform, the other U.A. students that stood off to the side looked on with mild concern. "I was hoping that none of us would have to fight each other," Yaoyorozu remarked, "At the very least until the only competitors left in the tournament were among the eight of us." Looking onward to where Itsuka and Kirishima were taking their positions on the arena platform, the wealthy girl continued, "And now one of us from 1-A has to fight Itsuka. She's a tough one."

"Don't go selling Eijiro short," one of the other U.A. girls in the tournament said, catching Yaoyorozu by surprise and making her, as well as the others, all turn to see who it was that held confidence for the red-haired manly boy of 1-A. To the surprise of the other five, it was Kinoko who had spoken up. The mushroom girl didn't have her head turned to face any of her fellow U.A. schoolmates; rather, her eyes were locked firmly on the match that was about to start. Well, Kinoko's right eye was locked firmly; her left eye was obscured by her bangs. "Itsuka is going to have her hands full since she's up against Eijiro," Kinoko continued, "I can just tell."

Scoffing a bit, Bakugo said, "Well you got Kirishima's clone in your class, and the two of them are more or less the same. With that in mind, it shouldn't be too hard for you to think about how much ass Kirishima can kick." Looking back towards where Kirishima and Itsuka were already fighting since Nemuri gave them the okay to proceed, the explosive teen said, "I just wished that Kirishima was paired up against one of those Vulcan High bastards, is all."

…

The match between Itsuka and Kirishima had gone on for about as long as Izuku's match against Sakaki. At one point, Itsuka, using her quirk to enlarge her hands, gripped Kirishima, who had his quirk active to make his body hard, in a way that pinned his arms to his side, as well as having a partial grip on the upper parts of the red-haired boy's legs. "Well about time I got you where I want you," Itsuka said to Kirishima as she held him up, "Sorry that we had to fight each other, and that our fight had to end here."

"Like hell it's ending here!" Kirishima declared as he squirmed a bit in Itsuka's grasp, bending his arms at the elbows a bit and wriggling them around. Due to Kirishima's entire body being not just hardened all over, but sharpened in certain places as well, Itsuka winced in pain slightly as sharp, pointed elbows dug into the palms of her hands. When Kirishima's right elbow managed to scrape against a bone, Itsuka gave a pained cry as she released the red-haired boy.

Having her hands return to their normal size, Itsuka got a quick look at them, and saw that the palms were cut up and bleeding. Looking back up at her opponent, Itsuka, despite her expression showing that she was in pain, gave Kirishima an amused look. "…Wow," the 1-B class rep said, "And here I thought that you weren't one to use your head."

"Of course I use my head!" Kirishima declared as he ran up to his opponent, "And I'm not done using it yet!" Before Itsuka could ask what he was talking about, Kirishima, who had just at that moment reached the girl from class 1-B, head-butted her in the face, mostly striking the area around her right eye.

"GAAHHH!" the class 1-B rep cried out as she reeled back, but the red-haired boy was not done yet; he slugged Itsuka in the gut with a right hook before pulling his arm back to deal a backhanded fist strike to the back of Itsuka's head, sending her toppling over onto the ground on the arena platform. While Itsuka laid there, Nemuri came over to take a closer look, giving Itsuka a lot of consideration as she looked at her.

Getting up from her crouching position, Nemuri raised her whip up. "Itsuka Kendo has been defeated!" Nemuri declared, "The winner is Eijiro Kirishima!" The crowd went wild as the winner of the second fight in the tournament was declared. The people in the audience who came out to see U.A. win it all were more excited than most, although there were mixed reactions to the result of the Itsuka-v-Kirishima fight.

Shouting angrily as he held clenched hands skywards, Monoma screamed, "Inconceivable! How can anyone from class 1-A win against someone from class 1-B? The very idea boggles the mind, I tell you!" Since Itsuka, the usual person to get Monoma to calm down from his anti-class 1-A tangents, was incapacitated for obvious reasons, Monoma was given a smack upside the left side of his head by Tsuyu, who used her long frog-like tongue to do the deed.

"You need to calm down kero," the frog girl remarked, her tone and expression unreadable as always. Some of the other thirty-two first year U.A. students, who were all sitting together, chuckled at Monoma's expense, mostly 1-B students.

Down in the stadium, off to the side where the competing U.A. students waited, they were just as excited for Kirishima's win. Yaoyorozu was particularly surprised that the hardening boy was able to win against an opponent of Itsuka's caliber. "He…" the rich girl said, her tone carrying a hint of mild disbelief, "…He actually beat Itsuka. Even I couldn't beat her."

Of the six U.A. students that just watched two of their fellows fight, Kinoko had the least excited look on her face. The mushroom girl's expression was one of someone whose suspicions had just been confirmed. With a small but mildly amused smirk on her face, Kinoko said when she turned to face Yaoyorozu, "I told you not to go selling Eijiro short."

"Wow," Izuku said as Itsuka was loaded onto a stretcher and Kirishima began to walk back towards where the others were waiting, "Things are starting to get really exciting here. I wonder what kind of fights we'll be seeing from here on out?"

Scoffing in a self-assured manner, Bakugo remarked, "Why are you even asking that, Deku? It's clear that U.A. will be moping the floor with those Vulcan High bastards!" When Kirishima had reached the rest of the U.A. competitors, Bakugo said to the group as a whole, "I hope all of you plan not to sandbag each other if you're paired to face off against one another. And if one of you is pared to fight one of those Vulcan High bastards, do what Deku did and kick their ass!"

All of the other U.A. competitors gave a rallying cheer in response to Bakugo's speech to them. Izuku, as he saw the explosive teen talk to the others, could not help but smile, proud to see that Bakugo was growing more and more as a person. Izuku wasn't sure what it was that had brought out this best from the explosive teen; probably the rivalry against Vulcan High, but the green-haired cinnamon roll couldn't help but wonder if him dating Bakugo's mom now had something to do with things here.

…Probably not.

* * *

To the surprise of many, most of the fights for round one ended up pitting Vulcan High students against one another. A particularly interesting fight saw Yuki, the conceited son of Vulcan High's principal, use his quirk, which allowed him to hop and bounce around the arena platform. The blonde-haired boy also wore a hero outfit similar to Monoma's, except it looked slightly looser, with baggier sleeves, and the addition of a monocle, a top hat and a gentleman's walking cane, giving Yuki a dapper look. Yuki won his match against a random Vulcan High boy.

Izuku remembered from his first fight in the tournament that Sakaki wore a long-sleeved light purple and light blue stripped shirt under a large pale light yellow shirt with a kitty face on it, a pair of light gray sweatpants, and a regular pair of shoes with socks. The green-eyed boy wasn't sure if the fat cat girl was in the same boat as Kinoko, that being only having casual clothes to wear, or if that getup Sakaki was wearing was actually her hero costume; the hero fan boy had seen pro heroes use casual outfits as hero costumes before.

Another match that pitted Vulcan students against each other saw a girl who could create up to three copies of herself fight a boy with a speed enhancement quirk. The boy ended up winning, despite the girl having the numbers advantage, since he dealt a swift punch to the side of the head of one of the girl copies; when that girl went down, the other copies had all 'poofed' out of existence, suggesting to Izuku that if the real girl goes down, all her clones go away right away.

The next fight saw Bakugo fight a Vulcan High boy who had dog ears and a dog tail that were reminiscent of a Basset Hound's ears and tail, similar to how Sakaki has cat ears and a cat tail. But unlike the fat cat girl, the dog boy had a lean yet muscular body. Bakugo won against the dog boy rather handily, since one of his explosions made enough noise to stun the dog boy, who promptly covered his ears. Unable to fight back, the dog boy was quickly knocked out by another explosion from the explosive teen.

The following fight saw Pony go up against a Vulcan High girl who had large furry ears similar to what a chinchilla has; likewise, the girl also had a chinchilla tail. Pony was able to win her match after a long and hard fought battle; Pony telekinetically controlled a few horns to rotate in a circle while pointing at the girl before sending them flying at her with the points all pointing right at her.

The chinchilla girl evaded all but one horn, which stuck her on the front of her left thigh. As the chinchilla girl cried out in pain from the horn in her thigh, Pony ran up and did a jumping kick that had her right hoof foot slam against the left side of the chinchilla girl's head, knocking her out and giving U.A. another win over Vulcan High.

As she reached where her schoolmates in the tournament were waiting, Pony, in her somewhat broken Japanese since she's still trying to get a grasp on the finer aspects of the language, said in an excited manner, "Did you people see how I win fight?"

"Well alright, Pony!" Bakugo said as he gave the half-American girl a thumbs up, "That was awesome how you gave Vulcan High a huge middle finger like that!" Pony smiled at the praise from her schoolmate, as well as congratulations from the other U.A. students. Even Itsuka, who was taken care of by Recovery Girl and came back to see her schoolfellows continue to kick some ass in the tournament, applauded Pony's win.

Nodding in acknowledgement of her classmate's victory, Ibara said, "You did well in your match, Pony. It is clear that Christ is looking out for U.A., since we have attained so many wins thus far in the-" The devout Christian of 1-B was cut off when an announcement from Hizashi over the stadium's intercom system cut her off, signaling that the next pair for the first round was about to be determined.

As the profiles of the remaining four in the tournament that have not gone yet began to flash across the jumbo-tron's screen, Yaoyorozu remarked to Ibara in a mildly concerned tone, "The only ones to have not gone yet are myself, you, Kinoko and the last competitor from Vulcan High." Looking back up to the jumbo-tron briefly, the rich girl continued when she looked back to Ibara, "I think it's that villain boy who was rude to you earlier."

Gently shaking her head, Ibara said, "That one is evil incarnate. I can tell just by looking at him." Her gaze set firmly on Yaoyorozu, the devout Christian said, "But I am not worried about him, or anyone else in the tournament, for that matter. After all, God is on my side. That alone gives me the confidence that I will-" Ibara was cut off again when she and everyone else heard the jumbo-tron stop. Looking up to it, Ibara saw the next match up, and it took her by surprise;

_Ibara Shiozaki vs_. _Akuma Giratina_

"That's him!" Yaoyorozu said to Ibara, "He's the guy who was rude to you earlier!"

With an unreadable expression, Ibara just looked up at the jumbo-tron. "…So it is," the devout Christian remarked. Turning to regard her schoolmates as a whole, Ibara said, "Well, I best be going to the arena platform. After all, I have to face that devil in battle."

"Good luck out there, Ibara," Kinoko replied as she gave her classmate a thumbs-up. Yaoyorozu saw this out of the corner of her field of vision, and remembered that, with Ibara paired up to face that villain boy from Vulcan High, that Yaoyorozu herself was going to face Kinoko in the last battle of the first round. That was not something that the rich girl was looking forward to, given a certain previous encounter she had against the mushroom girl of 1-B.

After a few brief moments, both Ibara and Akuma were on the arena platform, standing in their respective places as they faced off against each other. Given the respective airs that the two heroes in training gave off, many in the stadium were going wild with anticipation of what was looking to be an awesome battle. A battle that Ibara intended to win, because it wasn't just a battle of U.A. versus Vulcan High, but a battle of good versus evil.

END, CHAPTER FOUR

Author's notes;

Sorry that I had to cut it off here, but this chapter was going on a bit. Anyway, the next chapter will see the rest of the tournament's first round, as well as some scenes set before the beginning of the tournament's second round; I may even show the first match of the second round, if I can squeeze it in. As for a certain something that I've been making a habit out of in this story thus far, sorry that I forgot to squeeze it in this chapter; I'll try making it up later. Anyway, get ready to see a good number of big fights from this point forward, one or two of which is going to be particularly emotionally testing for some.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter five: The tournament part two-Dance with the devil

To say that Ibara Shiozaki was nervous as she made her way to the arena platform would not be a complete lie. After all, she was about to face her first opponent in the tournament between U.A. and Vulcan High. But the devout Christian wasn't going to let her nerves get the better of her; after all, she had faith that God was on her side as she stood across from her opponent on the arena platform, waiting for the signal that would start the fight to be given. Ibara was particularly keen on making sure she persevered, especially given who her opponent was.

Akuma Giratina, the last student from Vulcan High who had not yet gone in the tournament.

Ibara could tell (i.e. firmly believed) that Akuma was the Devil incarnate; from the way he had previously told her to shove a bible up her rear the last time they talked, from the way he dressed which was the exact same outfit he wore during the aforementioned encounter, to the very air that the Satanist was giving off. What Momo Yaoyorozu and Kyoka Jiro of class 1-A was saying about Akuma being a villain in the making was, by all appearances, making a lot of sense to the devout Christian.

"Alright, kids," Nemuri Kayama, also known as the pro hero Midnight, said to Ibara and Akuma as the two of them faced each other, "Remember that the fight doesn't begin until I give the signal. Also, the winner will be determined when one of you is rendered unable to continue, or if one of you goes out of bounds, or if one of you surrenders."

Ibara never faced the eighteen-only pro hero, choosing instead to keep her judgmental gaze on the Satanist of Vulcan High. "…I do not intend to surrender," Ibara declared to both Nemuri and Akuma while never taking her eyes off of the latter, "If that is what you're worried about."

Akuma could tell that the devout Christian was speaking to the U.A. teacher who was acting as a referee, to assuage any fears the teacher may have of her (Ibara) giving up. But he could also tell that said declaration from the vine-haired girl of U.A.'s class 1-B was her way of declaring that she saw this fight as a Christian's idea of good versus evil, and that she, the good, was going to defeat him, the evil, because that is how things should be. Akuma already did not like Ibara due to her expressing her devotion to her faith; it was a reminder to him of how everyone tended to view him as 'evil', something that was an everyday occurrence for him even before he became a Satanist. The only sign of annoyance that Akuma showed was him curling his fingers to that his hand formed fists, before loosening his tightened grip and allowing his hands to relax.

Nemuri hopped off of the arena platform to a little podium off to the side. Holding her whip up high in preparation to crack it, the eighteen-only pro hero declared, "This next match is between Ibara Shiozaki of U.A. and Akuma Giratina of Vulcan High! Alright then!" Giving a good crack with her whip, Nemuri exclaimed, "BEGIN!"

"Via Dolorosa!" Ibara yelled, wasting no time in trying to defeat her evil opponent as quickly as she could by immediately whipping out one of her super moves. Green vines quickly grew from Ibara and proceeded to spread around the arena platform. As her vines began to spread out, Ibara felt confident that she would soon have the devil she was facing ensnared; after that, it would just be a simple matter of carting him over to one of the sides of the arena platform and-

Ibara's thought process was cut off when black flames erupted from Akuma, burning away at any and all of her vines that were fast approaching where Akuma stood. As a circle of flickering black flames appeared on the ground around Akuma, he held his right hand in front of him, right around where his left shoulder was but with the palm facing outward. Quickly swiping the air in front of him with his right hand, Akuma called out, "Burning Mark!"

A mass of black flames that was in the form of a backwards (from Ibara's point of view) three-digit number began to quickly fly at the devout Christian. Acting quickly, Ibara quickly threw up a Faith's Shield to hopefully block the black fiery attack. The attack fired by Akuma slammed into Ibara's conjured shield of vines, burning the barrier greatly. To Ibara's shock, the attack was able to burn a hole through her Faith's Shield, a hole in the shape of the attack. Thankfully, by that point the fires of the attack had gone out, so Ibara herself wasn't actually hit. Looking at the hole in her barrier, Ibara recognized the number that the attack was in the shape of, even though she was looking at it backwards.

666\. The mark of the beast.

Akuma dropped into a three-point landing pose as he punched the ground in front of him with his right fist, yelling, "Hell Burst!" as he did so. Black flames erupted from his fist and began to race towards Ibara in a line. The devout Christian was unable to effectively dodge the attack, given that she was still stunned a little in her efforts to keep her Faith's Shield up long enough to block Akuma's previous attack. As such, the line of black flames was able to race straight towards Ibara and reach her feet. When that happened, the black flames surrounded her and burst upwards, into a fiery eruption of black flames that engulfed Ibara completely, making her cry out in pain as she was being burned.

Ibara, as she powered through the attack with a mix of physical effort and her own devout faith, saw that the burst of black flames was fixated to a single spot, the spot she was currently standing in. Acting quickly, Ibara jumped out of the pillar of black flames, allowing her to escape the attack. Using a mix of her hands and some of her vines, the devout Christian was able to brush off the small remainders of black flames that were on her person.

As the remains of her previously used Faith's Shield was beginning to crumble due to being engulfed in the fire of Akuma's quirk, Ibara used her quirk to make the vines of her hair grow long and fly right at Akuma, yelling, "Crucifixion!" as her super move made its way to her devilish opponent.

As he saw Ibara's attack come at him, Akuma calmly said, "Devil's Breath." Inhaling through his nose, Akuma then breathed out his mouth, sending a torrent of black fire breath flying from his mouth to meet Ibara's Crucifixion head on. The two attacks clashed and pushed against one another for about a second before Akuma's attack began to burn through Ibara's. Seeing that more of that devil's black flames were racing right towards her, Ibara quickly used one of her vines to sever itself and the others at a point somewhere before they got hit by the black flames.

That section of vine hairs fell to the arena platform's floor, consumed by the fires of Akuma's quirk, as Ibara's vine hair quickly receded back to her; when the vine hair finished its retreat, it returned to the usual length that Ibara likes to keep it at. Seeing that his opponent was able to save herself from being hit by his attack, Akuma merely glared at her, his expression a mix of angry and annoyed, as he cracked his neck slightly, his right hand against the side of his neck.

As her opponent glared at her, Ibara felt that she was running low on options; her opponent was essentially in perfect condition, whereas she herself was not only still hurting a bit from when she was hit by Akuma's Hell Burst, but she was also getting exhausted. The devout Christian, still not intending on letting this devil standing before her best her, knew that she had to end this fight quickly if she were to come out on top.

Urging herself forward, Ibara unleashed as much of her vines as possible, once again attempting to use her Via Dolorosa super move. As the vines began to spread from Ibara, Akuma held his hands in front of him, fingers slightly clenched, and the palms of both hands facing outwards and pointing right at Ibara. As black flames began emanating from his hands before going on to engulf the both of them, Akuma yelled, "Blazing Pentagram!"

A huge burst of black flames flew from Akuma's fiery hands, with the resulting mass of flames forming into the shape of an upside-down pentagram in a circle, as said burst of black fire flew right at the exposed Ibara, who was standing still to focus on her Via Dolorosa. As she saw the unholy attack fly right at her, Ibara went wide-eyed with fear as she knew that she wasn't exactly in the position to dodge.

As such, Akuma's attack struck the devout Christian, making her cry out in pain as the black fires blasted into her. The pain was such that it made Ibara's focus waver, causing her Via Dolorosa to fizzle out. The fires of Akuma's latest attack burned against Ibara for a couple of seconds before going out. After that, Ibara, her eyes closed and looking tired, fell to her knees before collapsing onto the ground of the arena platform. As Ibara laid there, Nemuri hopped off of the podium she was standing on to go over and give Ibara a quick look.

After her quick examination of the vine-haired girl of 1-B, Nemuri stood up and raised her whip in the air. "Ibara Shiozaki has been defeated!" Nemuri declared as she cracked her whip, "The winner is Akuma Giratina!"

The crowd went wild with a mix of reactions to the result of the fight between Ibara and Akuma; many were cheering since the fight was won, with some of those who were cheering excited to have seen such a battle. However, there were also a number of people in the audience who were booing because not only did a 'villain' win the fight, but that said 'villain' was a devil who defeated a girl of devout, pious faith. A fight with such a result did not sit well with people who held strict conventional beliefs.

* * *

As they watched Ibara being loaded onto a stretcher and carted off to go see Recovery Girl, the U.A. students, both those competing in the tournament and those who were watching, were shocked and worried for their classmate/schoolmate. "…Ibara lost to that devilish villain guy," Kyoka said worriedly as she sat in the audience with her classmates in 1-A that were not taking part in the tournament. Gulping a bit nervously, the rock music lover continued, "This is looking to be really bad."

Denki Kaminari, who sat next to Kyoka on her immediate right, turned to face her, giving her right shoulder a reassuring pat as he faced her. "There's no need to worry," Kaminari remarked, "Ibara's way too tough to let this keep her down. After all, she did defeat me a while ago during the sports festival." Taking his hand off of Kyoka's shoulder, Kaminari continued, "Besides, she's going right to Recovery Girl for treatment. Before you know it, Ibara will be out of the recovery area and back out here, joining us to watch the rest of the tournament."

Kyoka turned to regard the electric boy, giving him a small smile that, while still showing worry for the vine-haired girl of 1-B, was appreciative of Kaminari's attempts to reassure her. "Well, I guess there's still the last fight in round one to watch," the rock music lover remarked as she let some of her worry for Ibara go.

Nodding in agreement, Kaminari said, "Yeah, and if I recall correctly, the last fight will pit Momo against whatshername mushroom girl in Ibara's class."

"You mean Kinoko," a serious-sounding male voice said from behind Kaminari, prompting both him and Kyoka to turn around to see that Fumikage Tokoyami, who sat behind them, was the one who had spoken. Sitting on Tokoyami's left was their classmate Yuga Aoyama; to the right of Tokoyami sat Toru Hagakure. "Momo has a seriously tough battle ahead of her," Tokoyami remarked in a mildly grim tone, speaking as if he had all the confidence in the world, "Kinoko is nothing short of a terror to face in single combat, given what she is capable of." After Tokoyami spoke his bit, both Aoyama and Hagakure nodded in agreement with him, likewise showing that they were also worried about the rich girl's odds.

Kaminari and Kyoka both turned back around to look down into the arena, watching as both Momo and Kinoko walked onto the arena platform so that they could have their match. Even though she had some idea of what Kinoko was capable of, Kyoka had great difficulty in believing that class 1-B's resident mushroom expert was a straight up 'terror to face in single combat', as Tokoyami had put it.

Further fueling Kyoka's belief that her 1-A classmates were being irrationally afraid of Kinoko was the fact that the mushroom girl was wearing one of her casual outfits due to lack of any of her other outfits being clean at the time; Kinoko, wearing that frilly long-sleeved dress with knee-length skirt, cute shoes, frilly socks and mushroom-themed hairband, looked more like a classical Victorian era doll than a 'terror to face in single combat'. Kyoka just couldn't see how a girl like Kinoko could be as dangerous as some of her fellows in 1-A were claiming.

However, Kyoka, as well as the similarly skeptical Kaminari, soon saw why Tokoyami, Aoyama and Hagakure were so worried about Momo's prospects of winning her match. Right after the match was signaled to begin, Momo used her quirk to make a metal staff come out of her arm, with the intent to use said weapon to attack Kinoko. However, as the rich girl's self-made weapon was about halfway out/formed, mushrooms grew out of the nostrils of her nose, each nostril being completely clogged up by a mushroom stem.

Momo, who was startled by the sudden appearance of mushrooms growing out of her nostrils, quickly yanked the mushrooms out of her nose. Right after she did this, the rich girl's breathing started becoming labored and painful for her, making her drop to her hands and knees. Momo soon after fell onto her left side on the ground of the arena platform and just laid there, the great difficulty she had in breathing quickly laying her low.

Nemuri soon made the declaration that Momo had been defeated and that Kinoko won the last match of the tournament's first round. Kaminari and Kyoka would later learn from Tokoyami, Aoyama and Hagakure (who went to check on Momo as soon as they heard she was in the infirmary being treated by Recovery Girl with the appropriate medicines) that Kinoko used her quirk to make mushrooms grow inside of one of Momo's lungs, along with a few to grow inside of Momo's throat as well, which resulted in the rich girl asphyxiating. Tokoyami noted that this was the second time that Momo had faced off against Kinoko and lost, although their tournament fight was the first time they face off one on one.

After Kinoko won against Momo, the tournament had an intermission before the second round started. This break between the rounds allowed for people to stretch a bit, as well as give the remaining competitors that were still in the tournament time to rest before they had to go in for the next round of matches. For the 1-A and 1-B students of U.A., they chose to use this time to relax and converse with one another, as well as check on Ibara, Itsuka and Momo, who were in the tournament but were knocked out.

* * *

While the 1-A and 1-B students checked with each other, some staff members of U.A. were in a lounge area, talking about the progress of the tournament thus far. "I bet that you're feeling rather proud that Midoriya got past the first round," Aizawa remarked to Toshinori as the two of them sat across from each other at a table as they enjoyed some refreshments. The two of them weren't alone, as they were joined by Hizashi (who sat on Aizawa's left) and Higari (who sat on Toshinori's right).

Chuckling a bit, the former symbol of peace remarked, "Well I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't." After taking a sip from his mug of coffee, Toshinori remarked, "Young Midoriya had made some remarkable progress since he first began here at U.A. I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up as one of the finest heroes that this school ever produces."

"At least your protégé doesn't blow stuff up at random," Higari remarked when he turned his head to face All Might, "Seriously. I think at least thirty percent of U.A.'s annual expenses come from having to pay to repair damage that Mei caused in the Development Studio."

Chuckling a bit, Hizashi said, "Yeah that sounds like that girl, alright." Giving a helpless shrug, Hizashi went on, "But with a bundle of energy like Mei here at U.A., I can't help but think that things wouldn't be the same with-"

"ALL MIGHT!" a loud, booming male voice called out in something of an authoritative tone, cutting Present Mic off in the process. Said call was accompanied by the sound of the door leading into the lounge room being forced open with a foot slam, prompting Toshinori and the other U.A. staff members to turn and see who it was that had forced his way in. As such, the four of them saw Enji Todoroki, known as the current number one pro hero Endeavor, stride into the lounge room.

Enji was wearing his updated hero costume, and his usual flames that he had active on his person at all times were, as were to be expected, currently burning. It wasn't just the men at the table who turned to see Endeavor walk in; Nemuri and Sekijiro, who were sitting on a sofa in the lounge room while watching footage on the TV of fights from the tournament's finished round, turned to see the current number one pro hero walk in. Sekijiro had even paused the footage on the TV that he and the eighteen-only pro hero were watching.

Taking a calm, casual sip of his drink, the former symbol of peace said when he turned to address Endeavor, "I take it that you're not happy with some of the results from the first round of the tournament?"

Snorting indignantly, Enji said, "What I would like to know is why Shoto isn't taking part! This tournament would have been the perfect chance for him to get stronger!"

"Principle Nezu used a randomizer program to select four random students from my class," Aizawa began to explain, "Then four random students from Sekijiro's class, to be the eight students to represent U.A. in the tournament against Vulcan High. It just so happened that your son wasn't one of the students picked." Taking another sip from his drink, the underground hero remarked to Endeavor, "You're surprisingly similar to All Might, you know."

Arching a blazing eyebrow at Aizawa's comment, Enji said, "What do you mean by that?"

Gesturing to the current number one pro hero, Aizawa explained, "It's clear that you and All Might favor specific students in my class, specifically your son and Midoriya respectively. I suppose that such favoritism cannot be helped, given your respective cases."

Giving another indignant snort, Enji remarked as he folded his arms over his chest, "Well why wouldn't I want my son to achieve his highest potential?"

"Putting aside the already obviously stated facts," Hizashi began as he addressed Endeavor, "What do you make of the matches from the first round?"

The yellow-haired pro hero's question made Enji think for a few moments, a look of serious consideration on his face. After those few moments passed, the current number one pro hero began to give his two yen on the tournament's first round matches. "I would have to say that the boys from Aizawa's class performed excellently thus far, specifically All Might's protégé. I also have to commend the performance of that Akuma boy from Vulcan High."

"Are you serious, Endeavor?" Sekijiro said in an incredulous tone from where he and Nemuri sat on the sofa, "Did you not see how that villain boy tor-"

Sekijiro was cut off when Endeavor quickly turned to face him, a firm and serious glare on his face. "…You disrespect that boy, Vlad King," the number one pro hero remarked in a scolding tone, "Just because he has the look of a villain does not mean that he is one or similarly will become one." Addressing everyone in the room as a whole, Enji said, "There are many heroes that despite looking villainous are still very much heroes. Take a look at Kugo Sakamata, for example. He is regarded as the quote unquote 'third most villainous looking hero', yet he is still very clearly a hero."

Sekijiro, as well as most of the others in the room, looked mildly humbled by Endeavor's words about the Satanist from Vulcan High. The only exceptions were Aizawa, who looked indifferent, and Toshinori, who looked impressed and proud of Enji's declaration. The former symbol of peace also had to give his replacement credit for using the number eleven pro hero Gang Orca as an example to explain what he was talking about.

Folding his arms back over his chest again, Enji said, "That Akuma boy is another reason why I wished that Shoto was in the tournament. A fire quirk like what Akuma has would have been the perfect match for Shoto to train the fire side of his own quirk."

"Ah yes, young Giratina' quirk," Toshinori remarked, "From what we've gathered, it's called Hellfire." Giving Endeavor a knowing look, the former symbol of peace said, "It's named very similarly to your own quirk, Hellflame." The current number one pro hero nodded in agreement with All Might, the slight smirk on his (Endeavor's) face showing that he was further amused by the Satanist of Vulcan High.

Turning around to leave, Enji said, "I suppose I've bothered you all enough. I'm going to find where those concession stands have been set up so I can get something to eat before I head back to where Hawks has a seat saved for me." As he walked out of the lounge room, Enji said, "I for one do not want to miss one second of the fights that will happen in round two." After that, the current number one pro hero was gone, leaving most of the U.A. staff members that were in the lounge room with a lot to think about.

* * *

Izuku was standing next to a vending machine in one of the hallways in the stadium building. He was getting a few cans of soda; one for himself, one for his mother Inko (Izuku made sure that he got a diet soda for his mother) and one for Mitsuki Bakugo, Inko's friend, the mother of Katsuki aka Kacchan, and surprisingly enough, Izuku's current girlfriend. The green-eyed boy was still in a bit of shock that not only did he have a girlfriend now, but that said girlfriend was more than twice his age. Izuku was also concerned that his girlfriend just so happened to be the mother of Kacchan, and the explosive teen had made some of his displeasure with the current arrangement clear already.

Izuku was worried how things would go if he had to face Bakugo in the tournament, given that not only had both of them been entered into it, but both of them made it past round one. The green-haired cinnamon roll shuddered at the thought of the explosive teen using the tournament as an excuse to fire off countless explosions into his face at point-blank range to let off some of his annoyance at Izuku dating his (Bakugo's) mom. After he got the last of the soda cans that he was buying, Izuku stood up from reaching down to grab the sodas so he could go off to find Inko and Mitsuki and give them their drinks.

As he walked, Izuku was met up by Sakaki Yamamaya, the fat cat girl of Vulcan High; Izuku and Sakaki faced each other in the first fight, with Izuku emerging the winner. "Oh, you're the boy who defeated me," Sakaki began, "Good. I was hoping to run into someone who would be familiar with some of the people here at U.A."

"Is…" Izuku began, a bit nervous that someone from a hero high school other than U.A. was trying to grill him for some reason, "…Is there something that I can help you with?"

"Do you know this one U.A. teacher I saw walking around earlier," Sakaki began, "Who has long black hair, a slightly unkempt-looking face, and he's dressed in all black aside from some scarf thing that he wears around his neck?"

"Oh, that's Aizawa-sensei," Izuku replied, instantly recognizing that Sakaki was asking about his homeroom teacher, "Why do you ask?"

Nodding a bit before she continued, Sakaki asked, "I saw that Aizawa guy walking around earlier. He was followed by this boy who looked to be about our age. Said boy had wild looking purple hair, and had a similarly tired expression as that Aizawa guy."

After thinking a bit, Izuku said, "Ah, you must be talking about Shinso." With the clues that Sakaki had provided, it took very little effort for the green-eyed boy to recognize that she was asking about Hitoshi Shinso, a boy in U.A.'s class 1-C, which was a general education class. Shinso was initially put into 1-C since his brainwashing quirk was essentially useless in the exams to enter the hero department classes due to the students being pitted against robotic foes, but in recent events Shinso had proven himself competent enough to be in the hero courses. He will be starting in the next semester.

Nodding a bit in confirmation, Izuku explained, "Yeah, Shinso was trained personally by Aizawa-sensei. I saw Aizawa-sensei and Shinso earlier. They were both carrying some boxes that Aizawa-sensei said held papers that he and Kan-sensei will be passing out to students in their respective classes later. My guess is that Aizawa-sensei found Shinso and got him to help out with carrying some of the load." Giving the fat cat girl a curious look, Izuku asked, "Why are you wondering about Shinso, by the way?"

At Izuku's question, Sakaki's expression took on a noticeably embarrassed hint, her eyes looking away from Izuku. "Umm…I was wondering…" Sakaki said somewhat bashfully as blushing appeared on her cheeks, "…If you would know if…if Shinso has a girlfriend."

Izuku was stunned into a shocked state of being as he processed what Sakaki was asking for; she was basically expressing interest in dating the brainwashing boy of 1-C. "Umm…" Izuku began in a mildly unsure tone, "…I have no idea about Shinso's personal life in that regard, but I'll ask him if he's currently seeing anyone the next time I run into him."

Smiling a bit in an appreciative manner, Sakaki replied, "Thanks." As she walked around Izuku to take her leave, Sakaki said, "By the way, that was an awesome fight we had." Izuku turned around and saw Sakaki a bit before she turned a corner and was out of his field of view. Smiling a bit over having (potentially) made a friend outside of U.A., Izuku proceeded to make his way out of the hallways and out into the audience where Inko and Mitsuki were waiting in the bleachers.

When he turned a corner to enter another hallway that had the doorway he needed to go through to get to the bleachers, Izuku saw Shinso, the very boy that he was keeping an eye out for, standing near a vending machine that held snack items. The brainwasher stood next to Bakugo and Mineta, watching as Bakugo dealt a swift kick right to Mineta's hidden treasure, scoring a serious critical hit.

"Keep your hands to yourself, Grape Head!" the explosive teen snapped at Mineta as the latter fell to his knees while covering his little Mineta with his hands, "The last thing she needs before the second round is for you to creep on her like you do with every other girl!"

"I'm surprised that you care so much, Bakugo," Shinso remarked dryly, "You hardly ever act in defense of someone else."

Scoffing in an annoyed tone, Bakugo replied, "It's just that Grape Head here being a creep to her might sap her focus and make her less able to fight effectively. I don't want someone that I may potentially have to fight not be at their best."

"Oh, hey guys," Izuku said as he walked up to the boys in the hallway. When the green-haired cinnamon roll walked up to them, Bakugo and Shinso turned to face him; Mineta was still hunched over in pain due to Bakugo's previous attack on him, but he was aware that Izuku was coming over.

"Ah, Midoriya," Shinso greeted, a hint of friendly amusement in his tone, "Congratulations on your first round win."

"Yeah, you better stick in the tournament long enough so I can have a go at you," Bakugo said as he pointed his right index finger at Izuku, "You better not lose to anyone, Deku, especially to any of those Vulcan High extras who are still in."

Smiling a bit at the varied praise he was getting, Izuku replied, "Thanks you guys." Turning to face Shinso, Izuku continued, "Speaking of my first round fight, Shinso, I ran into the girl that I fought in the first round a few moments ago while I was getting some sodas."

"Oh?" the brainwasher asked, his tone taking on a hint of piqued interest, "She wasn't upset that you defeated her, was she?"

Gently shaking his head in the negative, Izuku said, "Oh no, Sakaki was being a good sport about it. But that's beside the point." Giving Shinso a serious look, Izuku explained, "She was actually asking me about you, Shinso."

This time, surprise entered Shinso's expression, although it was barely enough to actually make his eyes widen. "She was asking you about me?" Shinso asked, "What for, might I ask?"

"Believe it or not," Izuku said, "Sakaki has a crush on you." Upon hearing that from Izuku, Shinso's eyes widened a lot more out of surprise. Nodding in confirmation, Izuku went on, "Yeah, it was pretty obvious that she's interested in you, since she was asking me if I knew whether or not you had a girlfriend."

"Well to answer her question, no I don't have a girlfriend," the brainwasher replied as he held a hand over his chin while wearing a look of consideration on his face, "I've never exactly been the kind of guy that girls would confess to liking. But then again, I've never been the kind of guy interested in trying to pursue a romantic relationship with someone." A slight smirk appearing on his face, Shinso said, "I'm actually a bit flattered that a girl would like me, especially a cat girl."

"Dude, I wouldn't if I were you," Mineta said weakly as he struggled to stand up.

Arching an eyebrow, Bakugo said, "Wow, Grape Head, I never would have expected you to tell a guy not to go after a girl that's interested in him."

"Don't get me wrong, cat girls are awesome," Mineta said as he held a hand against the wall to steady himself, "They have plenty going for them." Taking a few breaths as he tried to recover, Mineta continued, "But that cat girl that Midoriya fought earlier is rather fat. I mean, who would even _consider_ liking a girl as fat as-"

Mineta was interrupted when Shinso dealt him a swift kick to his hidden treasure, scoring another critical hit within a few minutes and sending the small statured boy back to kneeling in pain as he covered his little Mineta. "Hush your mouth," the brainwasher said dryly, "Your words are interrupting my thinking." Midoriya and Bakugo looked on as their classmate kneeled in pain, neither of them particularly feeling like showing the infamous pervert any sympathy over how he was kicked two times in his little Mineta, and in roughly as many minutes.

* * *

After everyone had finished various minor bits of business, they were all back in the stadium, with the audience in the bleachers and the remaining competitors down in the arena. The U.A. students that were knocked out in the first round joined their classmates/schoolmates that were watching the tournament matches in the bleachers.

"It figures that you 1-A lot are falling behind," Monoma remarked in a self-assured tone, "Given how your classmate was soundly beaten by Kinoko. You all in 1-A have grown complacent!"

"Uhh, Monoma," Itsuka began, "You're forgetting that I lost to Kirishima, also Ibara lost her fight to that devil guy from Vulcan High. Overall, our class only has two people left in the tournament while 1-A here has three left." Itsuka's words made the resident hysteric holler monkey of 1-B slump down in his seat in shame and embarrassment, a look that made some of the U.A. students, both from 1-A and 1-B, laugh in amusement.

Sighing in a resigned tone, Ibara remarked, "I still cannot believe that I lost."

Patting Ibara on her back in a reassuring gesture, Hiryu Rin said, "Don't sweat it, Ibara. You can't win them all."

Gently shaking her head, Ibara said, "It's not that, Hiryu." Sighing in a resigned tone, the devout Christian said, "I lost to that devil boy, who I have no doubt will go on to spread further unholy carnage throughout the tournament, further becoming a blight that has to be wiped."

"Yeah, that Akuma guy sure is unsettling to have to face off against," Yaoyorozu remarked, drawing some nods of agreement from the other girls in 1-A. Gently shaking her head, the rich girl added, "I just hope that whoever faces him next will take him out."

"Don't worry, 1-A," Itsuka remarked as she turned to face the area where the 1-A students sat. Around that time, Hizashi announced from where he and Aizawa were commenting on the tournament matches that the second round was about to begin, and likewise the jumbo-tron's screen began flashing the portraits of the remaining competitors. Nodding in confidence, the class representative of 1-B continued, "I'm certain that there's nothing to-"

Itsuka was cut off when the jumbo-tron stopped, revealing the first fight of the tournament's second round. Everyone looked to see who would be fighting; when the U.A. students saw the match up, they all had various reactions, many of which were worried. Itsuka herself was the most worried, given what the match up was.

"…No…" Itsuka said quietly to herself, concern clear in her tone, "…You've got to be kidding me. That match-up just isn't fair." Gently shaking her head a bit, Itsuka continued, "_She_ has to fight _him_?"

END, CHAPTER FIVE

Author's notes;

And we're going to have to see round two starting next time. I wanted this chapter to finish off round one, as well as show some stuff happening between rounds, including establishing a few things with certain characters. Anyway, here's hoping that you guys will be surprised by the first fight of the tournament's second round.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter six: The tournament part three-Broken Saddle

_Kinoko Komori vs_. _Eijiro Kirishima_

"Well guys," Kaminari remarked as he turned to face Mina and Sero, "It looks like we're going to go be seeing Kirishima in the infirmary as he's being treated for mushroom lung." Both of the other 'Baku-squad' members nodded in grim agreement with their electric friend as they and the other 1-A students, as well as the 1-B students, saw the match up for the first fight of the second round of the tournament between U.A. and Vulcan High.

Looking down in the arena where they all saw Kirishima and Kinoko approach the arena platform, Yaoyorozu, Hagakure (though you can't see it) and Aoyama wore particularly worried looks for their red spiky-haired classmate. "This is totally unfair!" Hagakure huffed in a tone of clear complaint, "There's no way that Kirishima can win this. He won't be able to even get close to that creepy girl before she spams her mushroom spores and makes mushrooms grow inside of his throat and lungs."

Nodding in grim agreement, Yaoyorozu said, "As painful as it is to realize it, you make a very excellent point, Hagakure. Kinoko took me out in next to no time, and I had vastly more options than what Kirishima is going in with. I doubt that he even has any defenses that might be able to mitigate at least some of his disadvantage." Aoyama said nothing; holding a clenched fist in front of his mouth, the middle knuckles under his nose, he could only let out small, mild moans of worry for his manly yet highly unfashionable classmate.

Looking over to where Yaoyorozu was talking to Hagakure and Aoyama, Tokoyami said, "I have to concur with what you said, Yaoyorozu. As I have said before, Kinoko is nothing short of a terror to face in single combat." Turning his attention to down in the arena, where Kirishima and Kinoko now stood opposite of each other on the arena platform, the bird-headed shadow wielder considered the looks of both competitors before turning back to regard Yaoyorozu and company. "…However," Tokoyami continued, "I believe that Kirishima may have better odds of winning than what we are attributing to him."

"You think that Kirishima actually has a chance of standing up to that creepy girl in their match, Tokoyami?" Hagakure asked, her tone sounding mildly incredulous. Gently shaking her head (if the plastic headband she wore was any indication), the invisible girl remarked, "I'm sorry, but I just can't see it. What makes you think that Kirishima might win?"

"Body language," Tokoyami explained casually, "The body language that Kinoko was giving off when she went in to fight Yaoyorozu during the previous round was confident and, dare I say, carrying an underlying hint of savage mercilessness." Looking back down into the arena, the bird-headed shadow wielder said, "…Her body language when she went in just now to prepare to go against Kirishima clearly showed that she is cowed. I saw her fidgeting a little, and I even saw what seemed to me to be a nervous expression on her face."

"You think…" Yaoyorozu began as she turned to face Tokoyami, trying to put pieces together in her head, "…That Kinoko is _afraid_ of Kirishima?"

Nodding curtly in agreement as he crossed his arms over his chest, Tokoyami replied, "That is the same conclusion that I drew myself, yes."

"Well…" the rich girl remarked, "…Well Kinoko _did_ say that Kirishima shouldn't have been underestimated in his fight against Itsuka, which made a lot more sense when he actually won against her. It's reasonable to assume that Kinoko has a lot of respect for Kirishima's skill and power as a hero-in-training." Turning back to look down into the arena, Yaoyorozu said, "It's not too much of a stretch to connect the dots and assume that Kinoko has such respect for Kirishima because she's afraid of how tough he is."

The others who Yaoyorozu was talking with all nodded in agreement as they and the other U.A. students looked onward as Nemuri got off of the arena platform and hopped onto the little stage off to the side where she would make judgments from for the match. "Alright then," Nemuri said as she raised her whip up in the air, "Begin!"

Activating his quirk as he took a running start towards Kinoko, Kirishima had his right fist pulled back, ready to deliver a devastating punch across the mushroom girl's face. "_My only shot at beating her is to try and hit her hard and fast before she has a chance to do to me what she did to Yaoyorozu_," Kirishima thought somewhat worriedly as he ran straight towards Kinoko, paying no mind to the flustered, somewhat trembling air that Kinoko was giving off, "_If she can use her quirk before I get close, then I_'_m_-"

Kirishima's thought process, as well as everything else that was going on in the entirety of the stadium, all came to a screeching halt because of what happened just a few seconds after Nemuri called for the match to begin; Kinoko, while holding her left arm up in front of her in a sort-of protective gesture, shot her right hand up into the air as high as she was able to get it before she shouted as loud as she could, "I SURRENDER!"

Kirishima, who was about halfway towards reaching where Kinoko stood, stopped right there and then, frozen midstride with a mildly dumbfounded expression on his face. "…Ehh?" the spiky red-haired boy said, confusion clear in both his tone and expression.

Kirishima wasn't the only 1-A student surprised into a state of dumbfoundedness by Kinoko just up and declaring that she was surrendering; in fact, pretty much _all_ of 1-A, especially Tokoyami, Hagakure (although you couldn't see it), Yaoyorozu and Aoyama, all shouted, "EHH?!" in total, perfect unison. A vast majority of the rest of the audience also joined in on that shouting of confused surprise.

It goes without saying that Nemuri was likewise surprised, although she, like some other pro heroes that were at the stadium, was able to keep her cool. Walking over to the arena platform, the eighteen-only pro hero said to Kinoko, "You're…surrendering?" The confusion, with a mild dash of concern, in Nemuri's tone could not be missed, or mistaken for anything else.

"Yes," the mushroom girl replied with her gaze looking to the ground on her left, looking away from Nemuri.

"Are…" the pro hero Midnight continued, still unsure of what exactly was going on, "…Are you sure that you want to?"

"Yes," Kinoko replied again, still looking down and away from Nemuri; Kinoko still had her left arm in front of her and her right hand raised up as high as possible.

With a mildly resigned sigh, Nemuri nodded in understanding. Raising her whip up, Nemuri declared while giving her whip a good crack, "Kinoko Komori has surrendered! The winner is Eijiro Kirishima!"

Kinoko, somewhat sheepishly and fidgeting a bit all the while, quickly got off of the arena platform and went over to where Pony was waiting off to the side with Izuku and Bakugo, both of which looked confused by the mushroom girl's actions. Looking over to the arena platform, Bakugo saw that Kirishima was still standing there, still frozen midstride due to the sheer surprise over what happened.

With a resigned sigh, the explosive teen walked over, picked up his friend as if he were a life-sized cardboard standee and simply carried him off of the arena platform, telling him that he was going to be in the way of the other matches for the round. "Look on the bright side, Kirishima," Bakugo said as he got him over to where he was waiting with Izuku, "You're still in peek shape for your round three fight."

* * *

In an interesting twist of luck, the second match of round two saw Izuku fight against Yuki Hojo, the son of Vulcan High's principal. Like he did in his first round match, Yuki hopped and bounced around for the entirety of the match, trying to keep an agility advantage against the green-eyed boy. However, Izuku has fought similarly mobile opponents before, which gave him something of an idea on how to counter the dapperly dressed conceited blonde boy.

Using his aforementioned previous experience, Izuku was able to quickly get up close to Yuki, thanks to Full Cowling, before giving Yuki a One for All-powered punch square in his gut, sending him crashing right down into approximately the center of the arena floor. Izuku actually only used three percent of One for All, as he's trying to conserve some power for later matches. As he saw Yuki laying on the arena platform struggling to get up before collapsing right back into laying down, Izuku knew that using less than his standard five percent was a good call.

"Yuki Hojo has been defeated!" Nemuri declared after taking a quick look at the conceited blonde boy and knowing that he was out for the count. Giving her whip another good crack, the eighteen-only pro hero continued, "The winner is Izuku Midoriya!"

Izuku's win drew a lot more cheers from the audience than the previous match, due to the latter's lack of any actual fighting. As Izuku looked around, both awed and humbled by all of the people cheering for him, he heard Yuki say where he laid on the arena platform behind him, "Don't go thinking that Vulcan High is set to lose the tournament overall simply because you were able to pull out a victory against me."

Turning around to properly face Yuki, Izuku saw that, despite his beaten condition, the conceited blonde boy looked as smug and self-assured as ever. "Granted, defeating me is nothing short of a miracle, I'll grant you that," Yuki remarked to Izuku as medics came over to the arena platform with a stretcher to put Yuki on so that they can take him to Recovery Girl for treatment, "But there are still two of my fellow Vulcan High students left in the running." With a hint of sinister smugness entering his expression, Yuki added, "Including the one who will win it all in the end." As the medics put Yuki on the stretcher, the conceited blonde boy, never taking his eyes off of Izuku, said, "There is no way that anyone that is still in the tournament can defeat Vulcan High's ace in the hole."

As he saw the medics carry Yuki away on that stretcher, Izuku turned and walked off of the arena platform, going over to where Bakugo, Kirishima and Pony were still waiting. To Izuku's interest, a few of his classmates from 1-A, those being Yaoyorozu (who was previously knocked out), Todoroki, Tenya and Uraraka, were watching things from up close. Likewise, a few of the class 1-B students, those being Itsuka, Ibara, Kinoko (all of which were previously knocked out) and Reiko were there to watch things up close as well.

"Yeah, we all got the okay to watch things from here," Uraraka explained to the green-haired cinnamon roll as she gestured to herself and the others that weren't in the tournament (either anymore or not in the first place), "We wanted to cheer you and the others on as you work your way through the rest of the tournament."

Nodding in acknowledgement, Izuku replied, "Thanks, Uraraka. I'm sure I speak for Kacchan, Kirishima and Pony when I say we all appreciate it." There was still a hint of uncertainty in Izuku's expression, which didn't go by unnoticed by the students from 1-A and 1-B.

Gesturing to Izuku with his right hand, Tenya asked, "You seemed troubled, Midoriya. Is there anything that has you concerned?"

Sighing in a mildly troubled tone, the green-eyed boy said, "The last thing that Yuki said to me before he was taken off to see Recovery Girl. He said something about how Vulcan High was slated to win in the end because of what he calls 'their ace in the hole'."

Folding her arms over her chest, Ibara gave an unamused 'humph' before saying, "It's clear that he was talking about that devil boy that Vulcan High brought with them to the tournament. There is no way that he could be talking about that boy with the speed quirk."

Gulping nervously, Pony said with a hint of studdering in her tone, "That Akuma fellow is very much frightening me." Despite her not having a completely firm grasp of the Japanese language, the half-American girl was able to get her point across to her fellow schoolmates well enough.

Pounding his right fist into his left hand, Bakugo said, "Like hell that devil bastard or his two-bit extra friend will win the tournament!" Turning to face Pony, Bakugo continued, "Don't let that bastard give you cold feet. We're from U.A.! There's no way in hell that some extras from some extra hero high school can kick our ass!"

"Now that was one hell of a manly pep talk, Baku-bro!" Kirishima declared, giving his explosive friend a double thumbs-up. Pounding his hardened fists together, making a sort of clanging sound in the process, Kirishima continued, "And there's no way that I'm going to let anyone, not even you, take me out of the tournament without a fight!" Not that anyone else in the group had seen it, but Kinoko smiled as she gave a small nod of approval to what Kirishima said.

Clapping his hands together, Izuku said, "Hey everyone, the third match in this round is about to be announced!" True to what the green-eyed boy said, the jumbo-tron screen was flashing the profile pictures of the remaining tournament competitors before slowing down.

As there's only four people yet to go in round two, the people fighting in the third match will determine who will be fighting in the last match, by process of elimination. It was because of this that, when the flashing of profile pictures stopped, thus showing everyone who was fighting in the third fight of round two, the group of U.A. students that were down in the arena for a closer view of the fights were concerned;

_Takeshi Kanemaru vs_. _Katsuki Bakugo_

"It seems that you'll be fighting against that speed quirk guy from Vulcan High, Bakugo," Tenya remarked to his explosive classmate, "Which means that the last match of this round will be putting Pony against that worrisome Akuma fellow." Hearing that she was by default slated to go up against Akuma Giratina made Pony squeal a bit out of a mix of fright, worry and fear.

Scoffing as he looked over to the arena platform, Bakugo said, "It doesn't matter who faces who. Like hell that any of those Vulcan High bastards will win in the end."

Giving the explosive teen a somewhat serious look, Ibara remarked, "You're forgetting that the devil boy gave me a very sound defeat. As evil and horrible as he is, I don't think that he should be underestimated."

"And you're forgetting that Pony already kicked the ass of one of those Vulcan bastard extras," Bakugo pointed out in return. Turning around to walk to the arena platform, which Takeshi from Vulcan High was also approaching, Bakugo said as he made his way to his next fight, "She'll be going two for two, just like I'm about to do myself."

As he watched Bakugo make his way over to the arena platform, Izuku thought about how far Kacchan has grown as a person. In recent events, he became comfortable with the idea of letting his friends and allies rescue him (something that would conflict with the old Kacchan's pride) if it meant that his team will score a win. And now here Bakugo was, actively trying to bolster the confidence of his schoolmates in the face of something that is leaving a fair number of them on the unsettled side of feelings.

Granted, Izuku acknowledged that Kacchan reacted poorly upon learning that he (Izuku) was dating the explosive teen's mother Mitsuki, and Kacchan promised fierce retribution upon the green-haired cinnamon roll. But that's to be expected, given Kacchan's overall personality and the fact that 'that damn nerd Deku' was dating his mom. Izuku hoped that the explosive teen would be settled down a bit by the end of the tournament.

* * *

As Bakugo had promised, he defeated Takeshi with relative ease. Sure, the mobility that the Vulcan High student had gave him an edge in the beginning, but Bakugo improvised a move where he spun in place while releasing a steady flow of explosions, creating circles of explosions that panned out like ripples in the water. One of those rings hit Takeshi, knocking him over onto the arena platform's ground.

As the speed quirk boy laid prone, Bakugo rushed him, firing off a number of explosions right into Takeshi, quickly beating him into defeat. As Nemuri announced Bakugo as the winner of that fight, the explosive teen turned around and walked off of the arena platform and over to where his class/schoolmates were waiting.

Smirking a bit, Bakugo said to the other U.A. students, "What did I tell you?"

"That fight was very exemplary, Bakugo," Tenya remarked as he and the other U.A. students that were in that area to watch the matches from a better angle applauded the explosive teen's victory. They weren't the only ones cheering for Bakugo's win, either; the vast majority of the audience in the stadium was cheering and clapping for Bakugo's win.

As Bakugo was soaking in the praise he was getting from his class/schoolmates, Nemuri called out from where she stood on her little stage off to the side of the arena platform, "Can I have Pony Tsunotori and Akuma Giratina come onto the arena platform? Your match is about to begin very shortly!"

Looking over to where Akuma was already walking over to the arena platform, Pony gulped nervously, unable to help the uneasy feeling in her stomach. "I'm worried about that guy," the half-American girl remarked aloud, loud enough for her class/schoolmates that were standing in that area with her to hear. As she took a step forward, Pony felt a hand lay down on her left shoulder from behind her, prompting her to turn around to see who it was.

To Pony's surprise, it was Bakugo that had stopped her. "…You already showed one of those Vulcan High bastard extras who is boss," Bakugo began, the serious look on his face actually helping to reassure the nervous Pony to some extent, "This one shouldn't be any different." Giving Pony's left shoulder a reassuring couple of pats, Bakugo said with a self-amused smirk on his face, "Now go get him."

Pony's nervous frown slowly morphed into a small but thankful and reassured smile before she nodded once in thanks to the explosive teen. Pony turned back around and proceeded to head up to the arena platform. After Pony was out of immediate earshot, Bakugo heard Izuku say from behind him, "Wow, Kacchan. That was really nice of you to reassure Pony like that."

Turning to face the green-eyed boy, Bakugo merely scoffed. "It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth to see some two-bit extras from some two-bit extra hero school try to put on airs around us from U.A. is all," Bakugo replied, "Those bastards need to learn better." Bakugo's response only made Izuku smile more; Bakugo had, in his own way, more or less said that it wasn't any problem to help his fellow U.A. students.

* * *

Pony and Akuma stood across from each other on the arena platform as Nemuri was telling them how the fight was supposed to be run. The half-American girl was still worried about having to face the Satanist of Vulcan High, especially after she saw how brutally he defeated her classmate Ibara in the previous round. But that Bakugo fellow from 1-A told her that she had no need to be worried about her match, that she not only had a shot of winning, but that she was going to win. Pony honestly had no idea why her classmate Monoma insists that Bakugo, as well as the rest of 1-A, is the equivalent of dried squirrel poop.

"Alright then," Nemuri said from her mini stage off to the side as she raised her whip up into the air. Giving it a good crack, the eighteen-only hero called out, "BEGIN!"

Pony immediately jumped back a bit to get some distance from Akuma. Quickly firing out four horns from her head (which rapidly grew back in next to no time), Pony fired a barrage of them at her satanic opponent while keeping another four floating at her sides, two per side, as support or if she needed to lob a few of them at her opponent.

Akuma quickly dropped into a three-point landing position as he punched the ground with his left fist while shouting, "Hellfire Wall!" A wall of black flames erupted from the ground in front of Akuma, shielding him from anything that was trying to come at him from the front. As such, two of Pony's horns rammed into the wall of black flames, immediately dropping to the ground upon making contact, as if hitting the wall caused Pony's remote control of those horns to falter.

As for the other two horns that flew at Akuma, they curved around the wall of black flames to try to come at Akuma from his sides. Quickly getting up from his position, Akuma spun around to his right, grabbed the horn coming from him at that side out of the air and, with his momentum, continued to spin until the horn he grabbed stabbed into the fourth and final horn before ramming both horns into the ground, causing them to shatter.

Pony was an even mix of surprised, shocked and worried that her opponent had been able to so easily foil her attack like that. Aiming her head to where Akuma was standing, Pony fired a pair of her horns to fly right at him. Unfazed by the half-American girl's attack, Akuma said, "Devil's Breath." He instantly spewed a torrent of black flames from his mouth, which went on to intercept and incinerate the horns that were flying at him, causing them both to fall to the ground in burning masses.

As he was breathing his black flames at Pony's attack, Akuma held his hands in front of him in the same gesture that he had them in when he cast the attack that he used to defeat Ibara in the previous round. Sure enough, black flames began emanating from his hands before going on to engulf the both of them. Once his Devil's Breath was done destroying the horn projectiles that Pony had just tried to lob at him, Akuma yelled, "Blazing Pentagram!"

Just as she had seen during Ibara's fight against Akuma, Pony saw a mass of black flames in the shape of an upside down pentagram in a circle fly from Akuma's black flames-engulfed hands and right at her. Acting quickly, Pony jumped to her right to get out of the way, but three of her four horns that she had floating around her for support were struck down by the unholy attack. To Pony's further struggle in the fight, when she landed in her new position that she thought was safe, a blast of black flames immediately erupted around her, engulfing both her and the last remaining support horn that she had.

As Pony cried out in pain, the U.A. students that were standing off to the side cried out for Pony, either to express worry for her safety or to shout for her to not give up. "For crying out loud, that two-bit bastard extra does his shopping at that one edgelord retail store in the mall!" Bakugo yelled as he cheered for the half-American girl to not give up here, "There's no way that some demon wannabe should be able to kick your ass!"

As the black flames that were engulfing Pony died down, Akuma ran in, intending to rush his opponent in the effort to end the fight here and now. However, a single, random horn came flying at him, making him jerk out of the way to avoid that horn stabbing or impaling him. He avoided the desperate attack for the most part, but the tip of the horn was still able to inflict a grazing scratch wound on the outer side of Akuma's right thigh, making him snarl in pain.

As Akuma recovered from the surprise attack, Pony ran up to him and, with her left leg, delivered a side kick that struck Akuma on the right side of his torso, right under where his right arm would normally hang and forcefully pushing the Satanist back a bit. Akuma winced in pain slightly when the half-American girl's right hoof struck him on the side of his torso just a few inches under his right armpit.

After he recovered, Akuma looked at Pony, who had just a hint of confidence in her expression now. "…So, there are some among your number who _can_ fight back," the Satanist of Vulcan High said in a neutral monotone that had an underlying hint of barely piqued interest. Conjuring his black flames to form the shape of the number 666, Akuma threw that mass of black flames at Pony as he shouted, "Burning Mark!"

Pony quickly jerked to her side to dodge the attack, which flew past her on her right and went on to harmlessly slam into a wall that surrounded the arena and kept a good, safe barrier between the arena and the bleachers. Due to her view not being fully on Akuma, Pony was unable to react in time before he used his Hell Burst attack, once again engulfing the half-American girl in an eruption of black flames. As that attack was still burning Pony, Akuma was quickly getting ready to throw another Blazing Pentagram the moment the black flames engulfing Pony went down.

Those flames went down, and Akuma quickly threw his prepared attack at Pony, striking her with pinpoint precision and making her cry out in pain again. After the flames of that Blazing Pentagram attack flickered out, Akuma rushed Pony. Getting immediately in front of her, Akuma grabbed Pony by her throat with his left hand and lifted her up one-handed, inspiring feelings of dread, fear, worry and even horror in the U.A. students that were watching.

Pony tried to get her opponent to let her go, both of her hands on Akuma's left forearm, but she was finding trouble in drawing up the strength and energy to get out. As his opponent struggled in vain to get out of his grasp, Akuma aimed the palm of his right hand so it faced Pony's torso. Black flames flared out and engulfed Akuma's right hand, billowing sinisterly as Akuma, with an evil look of mercilessness in his eyes, held nothing back as he used one of his super moves to attack the helpless Pony.

"Hail Satan."

An explosive torrent of black flames burst forward from Akuma's right hand, causing them to burn and engulf the half-American girl. The scream of pain that Akuma's attack got out of Pony was nothing short of horrific, sending bloodcurdling shivers down the spines of many who were watching the fight. All of the U.A. students that were watching the fight called out in worry for their class/schoolmate, with some of the girls even crying as they looked away, unable to bear looking at the horror that was seeing one of their own being burned by the devilish black flames.

Right around when the blasting torrent of black flames Akuma ceased, Pony's grip on Akuma's arm that was holding her up went slack, her arms falling to her sides. Pony's eyes were closed, a look of horrified pain on her face. She was still breathing, but when Akuma placed her back on her feet and let go of her neck, Pony fell over right away, clearly beaten into unconsciousness by the her opponent's satanic attacks.

As Pony laid on the ground on the arena platform at Akuma's feet, Nemuri hopped off of the little stage that she was standing on, got onto the arena platform and dashed over to take a quick look at the 1-B student. After the eighteen-only hero got a quick look at Pony (letting out a mild sigh of relief in the process), Nemuri straightened herself back up before holding up her whip and saying, "Pony Tsunotori has been defeated! The winner is Akuma Giratina!"

Many in the audience were shocked by the match that they had just seen; there were even a few random people in the audience that were booing and jeering at the Satanist of Vulcan High. Akuma paid those small-minded people no mind as he simply turned around and walked off of the arena platform, never looking and seeing the medics load Pony onto a stretcher to take her off to see Recovery Girl.

As they saw their half-American class/schoolmate carted off on that stretcher, the 1-A and 1-B students, both those in the bleachers and those in the arena to see the matches up close, were all stunned into shocked silence by the horrific brutality that Pony had just been put through. Even the students that normally always had something to say did not utter even a single word, as they could not even fathom the match that they and their fellows had just watched.

Thankfully for them, since round two was over, there would be an intermission that would allow them to gather themselves and, for Izuku, Bakugo and Kirishima, prep themselves for round three. A round where, due to who was left in the tournament, two of the three 1-A boys would face each other while the third of their number would square off against Akuma. The prospect of having to face the Satanist of Vulcan High mildly worried one of the boys while causing great worry to another.

As for the third boy, facing Akuma was something that he wanted more than anything right now.

* * *

Izuku, accompanied by Uraraka, Tenya and Todoroki, was in one of the hallways in the stadium, getting some drinks from a vending machine. As the four friends were getting their drinks (Izuku covering the cost of Uraraka's drink for her), they were met up by Izuku's mom Inko and Bakugo's mom/Izuku's girlfriend Mitsuki.

Throwing her right arm around Izuku's shoulders to drag him into a hug that pressed the side of Izuku's face into her breasts, Mitsuki said, "Hot damn, Izuku! That was one hell of a beating that you gave to that gay little elf that you fought! Way to go for getting past round two, babe!" The ashy-haired woman then proceeded to playfully noogie her much younger boyfriend.

"Mitsuki may be…expressing things in her own way," Inko began, trying to be tactful in the face of Mitsuki's tactlessness, "But she's still expressing what we both came here to say. You did a very good job at getting past round two, Izuku. Congratulations, sweetie."

"Thanks, mom," the green-haired cinnamon roll replied, "Thank you as well, Mitsuki." Both adult women were caught by surprise by the lack of enthusiasm in Izuku's tone. Looking at the green-eyed boy, both Inko and Mitsuki saw that his spirits were very clearly down. As a matter of fact, Izuku's friends that were with him also looked to be in low spirits; even Todoroki, who normally didn't change much in terms of his expression.

Letting go of Izuku, Mitsuki gave him, as well as Uraraka, Todoroki and Tenya, a serious yet sympathetic and understanding look. "…You kids are still unsettled by that little devil prick and how he more or less tortured that magic horse girl, huh?" the ashy-haired woman asked, getting nods in the affirmative out of all four of the U.A. students.

"I honestly have no idea what Vulcan High is thinking," Inko remarked, her tone clearly sounding disappointed, "Accepting a clearly villainous student like that. Does that school even do background checks before accepting their students, or do they just accept every kid that comes in with a flashy, powerful quirk?"

"And to make matters worse," Todoroki commented to the adult women, "Either Midoriya, Kirishima or Bakugo will have to fight him in round three." This drew worried gasps out of both women, with Mitsuki immediately throwing her arms around Izuku and pulling him into a hug as if she was trying to protect him; the way that Mitsuki pulled Izuku in like this resulted in her, unknowingly of course, shoving the green-eyed boy's face right into her breasts.

"You mean to tell me that there's a chance that my bae here might have to fight that little devil prick in round three?!" Mitsuki snapped, clearly sounding worried.

Giving Mitsuki a curious look, the dual-quirk user remarked, "…I know that you and Midoriya are now an item Mrs. Bakugo, but shouldn't you also be concerned about your son?"

Scoffing indifferently, Mitsuki replied, "Oh please. I bet that Katsuki would actually relish the chance to get into a fight with some asshole that has a powerful quirk. Knowing him, Katsuki might even be praying to whatever god that might listen to let him be the one to fight that little devil prick in round three." Nodding a few times in confidence, the ashy-haired woman went on, "That son of mine has gotten into worse. Trust me."

Todoroki, Uraraka and Tenya all looked like they were considering Mitsuki's words, and were likewise finding validity in them. Izuku, when he finally was able to get out of Mitsuki's hold on him and finally breathe, also nodded a bit in agreement, as he heard what his older girlfriend had said; hell, Izuku and Bakugo had to face frigg'in _ALL MIGHT_ during the first term final exams, and they passed alright.

Granted, they passed said exam via escaping (which was one of the pass conditions, mind you), but given that both boys were roughed up a bit by who was at the time the number one hero and symbol of peace before said escape, they both got a taste of what All Might could do. Izuku had all the confidence in the world that Akuma's power pales in comparison to what All Might had before he had to step down and retire from being a hero.

If both Izuku and Bakugo could take a taste of the power All Might had and still go on to pass, then the green-eyed boy felt that either of them could handle a one-v-one against someone like Akuma. And Kirishima was one of the tougher students in the 1-A and 1-B classes, so if he was the one paired to fight the Satanist of Vulcan High in round three, he should be able to do more than well enough.

Looking Mitsuki right in her face, Izuku said, "You got a point, Mitsuki. I'm certain that if he were paired up to fight Akuma, then Kacchan will have no issue with-"

"OUT OF MY WAY, GRAPE HEAD!"

*THWACK*

"OW, MY LITTLE MINETA!"

Izuku and the others all heard what was clearly yelling coming from Bakugo and Mineta coming from around the corner. Curious, the six of them all made a dash to turn that corner; when they all turned into the hallway to see what was going on, they saw Mineta laying on his side on the floor, covering his hidden treasure with both of his hands, while Bakugo stormed off down the other end of the hall. Pained, squealing moans escaped from the infamous pervert of 1-A as he laid on the cool tile floor of the hallway.

Looking up at the six people who found him, Mineta squeaked out in pain, "Bakugo looked like he was crying, so I asked him what was wrong. Without warning, he gave me a swift kick to my little Mineta." Shakily pointing his right index finger in the direction Bakugo stormed off in, Mineta continued, "I think he's going that way if any of you want to try talking to him."

Izuku, Uraraka, Tenya, Todoroki and Mitsuki all proceeded to move to go after Bakugo, but they were stopped when Inko said something. "Excuse me, young man," the full-figured woman began in a kind yet curious tone as she addressed Mineta, "But did you say that Bakugo looked like he was crying?"

"Bakugo…" Tenya said in a tone of disbelief, when he and the others all realized what Inko was trying to get at, "…Was _crying_?"

Crossing her arms over her chest, Mitsuki remarked, "It's not like that brat of mine to cry for no good reason." The barest hint of concern entering her expression, the ashy-haired woman said, "I think that me divorcing from his dad has finally gotten to Katsuki."

"…That," Izuku began, "Or maybe Kacchan is just as upset as the rest of us by how badly Pony was beaten by that horrible fellow from Vulcan High." Clapping his hands together, the green-eyed boy said, "We ought to go check up on him." Izuku, with Uraraka, Tenya and Todoroki all following him, ran off in the direction that Bakugo took off in. Mitsuki would have done so as well, but she was held back by Inko who told her to help her with getting some help for Mineta.

END, CHAPTER SIX

Author's notes;

Okay, the tournament is now inching towards the semi-final round. With three of the four remaining students being from U.A., the odds of Japan's top hero high school winning the tournament as a whole are looking rather good. But with someone like Akuma still in the running for Vulcan High, anything is possible. Anyway, the next chapter will see a few more interactions in the background before the third round of the tournament starts.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter seven: The tournament part four-Avenging Angel

Mina and Sero looked on in mild concern as they watched Bakugo repeatedly punch the doors of a cabinet in the break room that they were in, angrily screaming bloody murder all the while. It was on this scene that Kaminari walked into the breakroom, carrying a shopping bag that clearly looked like it was holding a large plastic bottle of some drink. The electric quirk user was going to say something when he entered the room, but all words failed him, just as they had done for Mina and Sero, upon seeing what Bakugo was up to.

After a few awkward seconds of silence, Kaminari dared to speak up. "Umm…Bakugo?" Upon hearing Kaminari speak up, Bakugo immediately stopped punching the ever-loving hell out of the cabinet's doors before turning to face him. A bit unsettled by the clearly upset look on the explosive boy's face, Kaminari somewhat unsurely reached into the shopping bag he was carrying, pulling out a sixty-four ounce bottle of Allmight-aide, a popular brand of sports drink. The bottle that Kaminari had was watermelon-flavored.

Giving the large bottle of sports drink he got a little shake as he held it up for Bakugo to see, the electric quirk user said, "I got the biggest bottle of Allmight-aide that I could find, just like you said. I hope you don't mind watermelon flavor."

To the surprise of Kaminari, as well as Sero and Mina, the explosive teen visibly calmed down. "…Thanks, man," Bakugo replied, a noticeable amount of sincerity in his tone, as he calmly walked up to Kaminari and took the large bottle of sports drink from him. Unscrewing the lid on the bottle, Bakugo said, "I actually like watermelon flavor. The only flavor that I really can't stand is grape, but I would even put up with that right now."

As three of the four members of Bakugo's 'squad' watched him down that large bottle of sports drink, Sero remarked, "Umm, wow Bakugo. You must really be thirsty."

"Actually, dude," Kaminari began when he turned to face Sero, "Bakugo said that sports drinks really help him a lot, due to how his quirk works." Right when Bakugo finished off the sports drink bottle (Mina was admittedly rather amazed that Bakugo drank so much so quickly), the explosive teen went to throw the now empty bottle away as Kaminari continued saying to Mina and Sero, "He said that he wants to be as ready as possible for round three."

Both Sero and Mina nodded in understanding, with Mina saying, "That makes sense. Counting Bakugo, there's only four people left in the tournament." Involuntarily shuddering a bit, as if she was frightened to her very core, the pink-skinned girl added in a mildly unsettled tone, "And that villainous devil guy from Vulcan High is one of them."

"He's going down," Bakugo said suddenly, prompting his 'squad' that was with him to all turn to face him. "That devil bastard is going down," the explosive teen continued to swear, "I don't care if it's because I kick his ass in the third round or if I kick his ass in the final round after both Kirishima and Deku are knocked out." Clenching his right hand into a fist as holding it up in front of him, Bakugo said, "He's going down, by _my_ hand."

Mina, Sero and Kaminari all exchanged looks with one another, surprised to see this kind of a display out of Bakugo. "Umm," Mina said, "What if he faces either Kirishima or Izuku in the third round, and they knock him out?"

"Then I'll kick the ass of whoever did that," the explosive teen swore, "Keep in mind, Pinky, that regardless of who I face in the tournament, I'll be the one who's going to stand at the top in the end." Turning to go for the door, Bakugo said, "Now if you guys will excuse me, I have to go use the restroom." The explosive teen then left, leaving his 'squad' alone in the break room as they looked around at each other, mildly unsure looks on their respective faces.

* * *

Izuku, accompanied by his friends Uraraka, Todoroki and Tenya, as well as Izuku's girlfriend Mitsuki (who had rejoined Izuku's group after Inko forced her to help tend to Mineta), failed to find Bakugo before they all had to go back to the arena (for Izuku to take part in the tournament and for the other U.A. students to watch from the side) and the bleachers (for Mitsuki, who would rejoin Izuku's mom Inko) because the third round was about to start.

The students in class 1-A that was in the arena during round two was back to where they were standing around. The 1-B students that had joined them, however, were all absent. According to Todoroki who got it from Reiko, the 1-B girls (yes, all of them) all went to go see Pony in the infirmary; even after she was treated by Recovery Girl, Pony was still in no condition to come back out and watch the remaining matches. As such, they would be able to watch the round three matches on a TV in the infirmary.

"Alright, folks!" Hizashi announced on the intercom from where he and Aizawa were both commenting on the matches, "Sorry for any delay, but now we're ready to begin the semi-final round of the U.A. versus Vulcan High tournament! Alright, let's see who we have for round three fight one!" At that prompting, Aizawa pressed a red button on the console he was sitting at, which made the jumbo-tron screen quickly flash the profile pictures of the four remaining competitors in the tournament. The flashing began to slow down somewhat, then it eventually stopped on two faces, the boys who would fight each other in the beginning of round three;

_Akuma Giratina vs_. _Katsuki Bakugo_

"Alright, ladies and gents!" Hizashi said excitedly over the intercom, "We have two boys that have been rampaging throughout the tournament thus far going head to head against each other! Who will come out as the winner in this mix of black flames and explosions?"

Down in the arena, Bakugo pounded his right fist into his left hand (a gesture that Izuku, who stood a good few feet away from Bakugo, could literally feel) as his savage expression made him look like someone who was very eager to commit mass slaughter. The lip-curled snarl that the explosive teen had for a smile at that moment was a clear sign that Bakugo was nothing short of absolutely _ecstatic_ that he was getting to face Akuma.

Turning to face where the other U.A. students down in the arena stood, Bakugo said while pointing to Izuku and Kirishima, "It looks like you and Stupid Hair just got off really easy, Deku." Turning to face the arena platform, Bakugo continued as he proceeded to walk towards his next match in the tournament, "Now, if you two, Half-n-Half, Glasses and Round Face will excuse me, I'm going to go shove an explosion right up that devil prick's ass."

As they watched the explosive teen go off to face his third round opponent, Izuku, Uraraka, Tenya and Todoroki were all unsure what to think. Sure, Akuma had soundly beaten Ibara in the first round, and they all highly doubted that they could ever get the image of what Akuma did to Pony during the second round out of their minds. But this was Bakugo, someone with just as potent and powerful of a quirk, and just as savagely violent as the Satanist of Vulcan High, that they were talking about.

The only one among their number off to the side of the arena platform who knew what to think was Kirishima. "Hot damn!" the spiky red-haired hardening boy said in an excited tone, "Now that is some downright manly confidence! Baku-bro is totally going to kick that guy's ass!" Crossing his arms over his chest, Kirishima continued, "And from what I got from that girl that surrendered to me in round two, getting that devil guy as his opponent is just what he wants."

"Excuse me?" Izuku asked, his expression and tone both surprised and curious, as he and the others turned to face Kirishima.

"Yeah," Kirishima proceeded to explain, "The girl that I faced in round two, I'm sorry but I don't remember her name right now, told me that while she and the other girls in her class were on their way to go see Pony in the infirmary, Bakugo stopped them in one of the hallways for a couple of moments…"

(FLASHBACK)

From Kinoko's point of view, she, as well as Itsuka, Ibara, Yui, Setsuna and Reiko, who were all on their way to go visit Pony in the infirmary during the intermission between rounds two and three, all watched as Bakugo started talking to Ibara. "Hey, Vine Hair," Bakugo began, "You're a Christian, right?"

"Yes," Ibara replied with a small nod in the affirmative. A hint of mild confusion entering her expression, Ibara continued, "I should have made it obvious. But that's beside the point. Why do you ask about my faith, Bakugo?"

Pointing his right index finger straight up, the explosive teen kept his gaze on the devout Christian of 1-B. "…Can you tell your boss that I want to take a crack at that devil prick from Vulcan High?" Bakugo replied, then before any of the 1-B girls could stop him, the explosive teen turned around and walked away, leaving them all confused.

(FLASHBACK OVER)

"…And that about does it from what I was told," Kirishima remarked to Izuku and the others as he wrapped up his story. An assured look on his face, Kirishima went on, "We don't have to worry about Baku-bro, guys. He's as tough as they come, and he's more than ready to face that devil guy in their match." Turning to face Izuku, the spiky red-haired hardening boy said, "By the way, dude, you better not sandbag me in our match."

Izuku, realizing that he would by default be paired to fight Kirishima, nodded affirmatively in response. "Don't worry, Kirishima," the green-haired cinnamon roll replied, "There's no way I'm holding back. Kacchan would probably hurt me if he thought I was trying to go easy on someone in a fight, even if it's not him that I'm fighting."

Giving Izuku a hardy clap on the back, Kirishima said, "Now that's what I'm talking about, dude! Ah man, I'm already riled up for our match, and Baku-bro's fight will only get me even more excited for when the two of us get to go at each other, Izuku!" As they watched the show of friendly competition and good sportsmanship between their classmates, Uraraka, Todoroki and Tenya couldn't help but smile, their minds put at ease by the friendly display.

However, all thoughts of that nature was going to have to wait until the next match. With their eyes, as well as those of Izuku, Kirishima and practically everyone else watching, either live in the stadium or from a TV screen somewhere (as was the case for all of the class 1-B girls save for Pony who was still out of it), all turned to the arena platform, they all watched as the first match of round three was about to begin.

* * *

"This next match is between Katsuki Bakugo of U.A. and Akuma Giratina of Vulcan High!" Nemuri declared to the audience, her whip raised up high, as she was officiating the start of the match between the two powerful and violent boys, "Now then!" Giving a good crack with her whip, Nemuri exclaimed, "BEGIN!"

Using his Blast Rush Turbo technique, Bakugo quickly closed the distance between him and Akuma, wasting not even one second after their match was officially started. Akuma's eyes widened a bit in alarm due to the speed and explosiveness Bakugo had in getting up to him. Acting quickly, the satanic hero-in-training threw up a Hellfire Wall, hoping that his opponent was either too stupid or too reckless to avoid ramming right into the wall of unforgiving flames.

Unfortunately for Akuma, Bakugo was actually among the smartest of the students in not only his class, but among the combined lot of 1-A and 1-B. Acting quickly, the explosive teen threw his hands forward and released a few explosions to fly back a bit, just enough to avoid ramming right into the Hellfire Wall. Standing at a safe distance away, Bakugo immediately began creating a sphere of light between his hands. "Stun Grenade!" Bakugo yelled as the sphere of light he created exploded out into a large scale flash, casing a blinding light over the entirety of the arena platform.

Akuma was barely able to avoid being completely blinded by the explosive flash conjured by Bakugo; even so, he was still low on defending himself at that moment. It was a moment that Bakugo gleefully took advantage of, taking aim at Akuma right before he unleashed an AP Shot aimed right at Akuma's gut. It was by sheer instinct that Akuma sensed the attack flying right at him, and said instinct allowed him to dodge an attack that was strong enough to pierce right though solid concrete (a human body, naturally, would be made into Swiss cheese if struck by such an attack).

Scoffing in annoyance when he saw his AP Shot had missed Akuma, Bakugo proceeded to fire off an AP Shot: Auto-Cannon, firing off numerous multiple AP Shots. Sure, they were all weaker than the standard, but they would be able to hit a target many times in quick succession, also they weren't powerful enough to turn humans into Swiss cheese, so Bakugo was able to avoid the potential trouble that came with grievously wounding his opponent (not that, given who he was fighting, Bakugo would actually _mind_ doing that right now).

Akuma was getting annoyed, with said annoyance further fueled by the three or so hits he took from Bakugo's AP Shot: Auto-Cannon. Acting right away, Akuma threw a Burning Mark right at the explosive teen, who dodged it by propelling himself up into the air with his explosions. Seeing Bakugo as a sitting duck while in the air like that, Akuma threw a Blazing Pentagram at the airborne Bakugo, who blocked it with another Stun Grenade that casted more of that damn blinding light all over.

Landing right back down on the arena platform, Bakugo used AP Shot: Auto-Cannon again, striking the Satanist of Vulcan High multiple times. As he tanked the hits, Akuma could tell that Bakugo was still directly in front of him, judging by the quality of the attack that was hitting him many times. Taking aim in the appropriate direction, Akuma unleashed a Devil's Breath that went on to strike Bakugo in his left shoulder, marking Akuma's first successful attack against the explosive teen.

"Feh!" Bakugo scoffed, more pissed than anything else, "Lucky shot, you devil asshole!" Quickly brushing away the small, flickering black flames that were still on the area of his left shoulder, Bakugo quickly threw a number of regular explosions right at Akuma, causing blasting damage that covered a wide area of the arena platform, with Akuma himself taking a few of those explosions. Sure, they only scored grazing hits at best thanks to Akuma's quick acting when it came to dodging, but he still took those hits and, unlike with most others that Akuma ever got to go up against in a fight, Bakugo was actually able to go toe to toe with him. The Satanist of Vulcan High even felt that a good number of pro heroes would have trouble standing up to the explosive teen in single combat.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Akuma was actually starting to worry about an opponent that he was facing. Akuma quickly spewed a Devil's Breath aimed right at Bakugo and, while that was going on, he prepared to fire a Burning Mark. As Bakugo dodged the Devil's Breath, he ended up taking the Burning Mark to his gut. While that momentarily stunned him, Akuma conjured a Blazing Pentagram that he threw at Bakugo.

The attack that he took from Akuma barely stunned Bakugo for a brief few seconds, and when he recovered, he was able to handily dodge the Blazing Pentagram. When Bakugo then immediately proceeded to go right for him, Akuma quickly aimed his right hand, which was engulfed in black flames, with the palm facing forward, right at the incoming Bakugo. When the explosive torrent of black flames that was Akuma's Hail Satan attack started flying right at him, Bakugo quickly raised his hands and took aim with his Howitzer Impact.

Bakugo's super move went off then hit Akuma roughly around the same time that he himself got hit by Akuma's unholy attack, the very same attack that was used to previously defeat Pony. One boy was engulfed in black flames while the other boy was engulfed in explosions. Everyone in the stadium who was watching the match was shocked by the sheer power, in both quantity and quality, that the two boys were so casually lobbing at one another.

There was further gasps of worry coming from those on U.A.'s side when the explosions that had engulfed Akuma began to simmer down, revealing that Akuma, despite looking moderately injured, was still standing. Meanwhile, the black flames that were engulfing Bakugo were still going strong. Seeing this, Akuma smirked in self-amusement, figuring that he had at last got the explosive teen beaten.

To Akuma's shock, as well as the shock and surprise of everyone watching the match, Bakugo rushed out of the black flames, an enraged look of determination on his face. Coming right up to Akuma, Bakugo raised his hands up to that his grenade gauntlets were both aimed right at the satanic hero-in-training. Akuma, given that he had an upfront view, went wide-eyed with shock when he saw and sub sequentially realized what his opponent was going to do.

Bakugo's grenade gauntlets each had a pin sticking out of them that, when pulled, allowed Bakugo to unleash a massive explosion from said gauntlet. The source of these explosive blasts come from the fact that Bakugo's gauntlets allow him to store his sweat, which is the source of his explosions that he triggers all the time, so that he could unleash a massive blast whenever he felt like it.

Anyone who wore one of those gauntlets could technically do this, as Izuku did when Bakugo had him use one during their final exam match against All Might. But that is beside the point. The point is that this time, there were strings tied to each of the grenade gauntlet pins, with Bakugo's left hand gripping the right grenade gauntlet's pin and vice-versa. With a flourish, Bakugo instantly pulled on both strings at the same time, as such pulling out both pins so that he could unleash the entire contents of both gauntlets, both of which were as max capacity, right at Akuma at point blank range in a brand new super move that the explosive teen had been working on.

"BIG BANG ATTACK!"

A truly massive, deafening explosion went off, shaking not just the entirety of the arena but a fair portion of the stadium as a whole, making everyone in the audience cry out in surprise. Smoke and blasts engulfed the entirety of the arena platform, and the wind force that was kicked up by Bakugo's big move just now was so potent that Izuku and the other 1-A students standing off to the side to watch the matches up close had to hold their arms in front of their faces in an attempt to have some cover. Kirishima even activated his quirk for additional protection.

The attack that Bakugo had unleashed was so massive that it took close to a minute for everything to die down so that people could actually see what was going on down on the arena platform. Standing there where he was before he attacked Akuma at point blank range was Bakugo, the barrel ends of both grenade gauntlets broken, with a few pointy, jagged shards going outwards. The explosive teen was also clearly hurt, as he tried rolling his shoulders as if to get them to not be so much of a bother. It was while Bakugo did this that the smoke and blasts that were obscuring Akuma died down, and Bakugo saw to his shock that his satanic opponent had thrown up a Hellfire Wall to act as a shield to protect him.

Right as Bakugo started snarling in rage over his big move not actually doing anything, the Hellfire Wall went down and Bakugo saw to his immediate relief and elation that Akuma's last-second defense did only half its job at best; the quarter or so of Akuma's tank top that was around the area of his left shoulder was now gone, there were cuts and bruises all over Akuma's arms, as well as a few on his face and some over the exposed part of his torso, and Akuma's right arm even looked like it was dislocated, as Akuma had his left arm raised ever so slightly but the right one just hung there uselessly. There was also the fact that Akuma was very clearly winded, and that he was on the verge of going down.

Refusing to let up and deciding to take the bull by the horns in this case, Bakugo ran right up to Akuma and slugged him under the right side of his ribcage, making the Satanist of Vulcan High cough up a little bile. Bakugo then raised his right hand up and swung a backhanded fist attack at the side of Akuma's head, shattering what was left of the right hand grenade gauntlet against the right side of Akuma's head.

Bakugo's last attack had the result of sending Akuma sprawling over onto the ground of the arena platform. As Akuma laid there prone, clearly in no condition to get back up, Nemuri got off of the little stage that she was standing on off to the side, hopped onto the arena platform and went over to check on Akuma. After a couple seconds of getting a quick look at Akuma, the eighteen-only hero nodded in confirmation, as well as let off a bit of a satisfied smile. Raising her whip up into the air, Nemuri announced as she cracked her whip, "Akuma Giratina has been defeated! The winner is Katsuki Bakugo!"

The audience let out a roaring applause that was almost as deafening as Bakugo's double gauntlet-fueled attack. Bakugo's fight just now was the most potent fight in the tournament yet, with so many moves and so much raw power being thrown around. Looking around at all of the people who were cheering for his victory, Bakugo, for once in his life, actually didn't care that he was being praised for his power; all he wanted was to kick Akuma's ass, and he had done just that. However, the explosive teen figured that all of the people that were watching wanted a good show, wanted something to cheer for. As such, Bakugo did something to give the crowd what they wanted.

He raised _both_ of his fists straight up into the air, as a sign of his victory.

…

Despite not being in the arena to watch the fight live, the class 1-B girls watched the match between Bakugo and Akuma on a TV that was in the infirmary. Pony, who had barely woken up after her treatment from Recovery Girl, only saw the very tail end of the fight, where Bakugo smashed the remains of one of his damaged gauntlets against the one side of Akuma's head and knocking said Vulcan High student down. As such, the half-American girl was awake and able to join her fellow female classmates in cheering over Bakugo's win.

"He actually beat that scary guy!" Pony remarked, amazed that Akuma, who had gone through the tournament so easily thus far was actually beaten in a hard-fought battle. It was very clear that Pony was relieved, as well as a little elated, to see the Satanist of Vulcan High finally go down in the tournament. Watching on the TV as Bakugo raised both of his fists right into the air, the half-American girl said, "Explosion boy from 1-A is really strong!"

Ibara nodded in agreement with her classmate before saying, "I for one am glad to see that the devil boy has finally been defeated, as he should be. It seems that Bakugo's strong desire to be the avenging angel set to take the devil boy down has paid off."

"Huh?" Pony remarked in a confused tone, turning to face her religious classmate.

Turning to regard Pony, Ibara explained, "Right before the girls and I came in here to keep an eye on you as you rested, we were stopped by Bakugo." With a hint of amusement entering her expression, the devout Christian said, "Bakugo, in his own way, asked me to pray to God to let him fight the devil boy." Turning to regard the TV that was playing what was going on in the arena during the tournament, Ibara said, "It's clear that God answered that prayer and allowed Bakugo to take the devil boy down with righteous fury."

Clapping Pony on the back gently, Itsuka said, "I just figured that Bakugo was really upset seeing you getting practically tortured in your fight with that villain guy. I mean, you were rushed here to be treated by Recovery Girl, so it goes without saying that a lot of us were worried about you." Looking back to the TV, the class 1-B representative continued, "It's just that Bakugo had both the power and the chance to kick that villain guy's ass."

"Hey, Bakugo looks pretty banged up," Setsuna remarked as she looked at the TV, "You think that he'll be brought in for treatment?"

"Knowing him," Yui began, "And given that he looks like he can still walk, Bakugo will probably insist on coming in for treatment on his own." The 1-B girls saw on the TV screen that Bakugo was talking to a few medics that came over to check on him; surprisingly, the explosive teen calmly nodded in understanding, and even a little bit of thanks, as he followed the medics off of the arena platform and into one of the corridors that led into the various hallways of the stadium, presumably to go be treated by Recovery Girl.

A few moments after Bakugo followed the medics out of the arena, Pony looked around at her friends that were with her while she was recovering in the infirmary. The half-American girl noticed that something was off, so she proceeded to ask. "Hey girls," Pony began, "Do any of you know where Kinoko is?"

"Oh, the instant Bakugo was declared the winner of his match against that villain guy from Vulcan High," Reiko began to explain, "Kinoko got up and left the infirmary. When I asked her about her suddenly getting up, she explained that she wanted to go watch the next match out in the arena, rather than watch it from here on the TV." With a look of wonder on her face, Reiko added, "I have no idea why Kinoko was so insistent on watching the match between Midoriya and Kirishima out in the arena, though."

Pony, as well as Yui, Ibara, and Setsuna, shared in Reiko's confusion over their mushroom-themed friend's actions. Only Itsuka looked as if she knew why Kinoko was acting the way that she was, not that any of the other girls saw the look of suspicion on their class rep's face. As she looked to the other 1-B girls, Itsuka said, "Well aside from Kinoko who already left to go watch things in the arena, what do you girls say about us staying here to watch the last match of the semi-final round?"

The remaining 1-B girls all nodded in agreement with Itsuka, and as a group, they all turned their attention to the TV so they could watch the match between Izuku and Kirishima, which just at that moment had begun. Even though the fight just started, some of the 1-B girls felt sorry that Bakugo had to miss part of what was clearly shaping up to be an awesome match, one where two of the explosive teen's classmates were fighting each other, no less. After all, both of the 1-A boys were already throwing down.

* * *

Bakugo was sitting on the side of one of the beds in a different section of the infirmary; aside from some minor injuries and a partly dislocated shoulder, all of which was already treated by Recovery Girl, the only thing wrong with Bakugo was a bit of dehydration, as if he had spent a few hours walking under a blazing sun. Even though that large bottle of Allmight-aide helped a lot, Bakugo was still lacking a lot due to how much of a sweat he worked up.

To his surprise, a twenty-eight ounce bottle of green apple-flavored Allmight-aide was tossed onto the bed Bakugo was sitting on, lading with a light flump on his right side. Looking over in the direction that the bottle must have come from, Bakugo was surprised to see Itsuka, as well as both Pony and Ibara, standing there. "…Yeah, when we heard those medics bring you in," Itsuka began to explain, "The girls and I all wanted to get the chance to congratulate you on your win against that villain devil guy. The medics let only the three of us in, and just now."

"Your friend with the electric quirk said that you like sports drinks since they help with your quirk to an extent," Pony said, "And when Itsuka, Ibara and I came to check on you here, the three of us passed a vendor who was selling drinks. I got you that Allmight-aide since I figured that you must have really gotten tired by the time you won." With a look of mild concern on her face, the half-American girl said, "I hope you don't mind green apple. It's my favorite flavor, and I sort of picked it by default when I saw it."

Bakugo seemed to be at a bit of a loss for words before he quickly got ahold of himself. Picking up the bottle of Allmight-aide, Bakugo calmly said, "Umm, thanks." As he unscrewed the lid on the bottle, the explosive teen said, "Since you said you talked to Kaminari, he should have told you that the only flavor I really can't stand is grape."

"Why grape?" Itsuka asked, a curious look on her face, as well as on the faces of both of the other 1-B girls that were there.

Giving the 1-B class rep a dry look, Bakugo said, "Let's just say that a certain classmate of mine in 1-A turned me off of grape-flavored everything forever." After taking a swig from the sports drink that Pony got for him, Bakugo asked, "So, did any of you catch any of the match between Kirishima and Deku?"

"We saw them exchange a few attacks on the TV in the ward where Pony was recovering before the three of us came here to check on you," Itsuka explained, "But we have no idea who won that match, or if the match is still going on."

"They're both good, I have to admit," Bakugo remarked, "A damn shame that I have to wait here to learn who I'll be fighting in the final round, rather than learn it immediately by watching the match as it's going on."

As Bakugo continued to talk to the 1-B girls, Recovery Girl came in. "Oh, a sports drink like that might actually be a good thing for you right now, young man," the elderly nurse remarked when she saw the green apple Allmight-aide in Bakugo's hand, "But that's beside the point. Anyway, I figure that you're good enough to go." Turning around to point her cane towards the doorway that led into the ward that everyone was in, Recovery Girl continued, "The last semi-final match was still going on the last I heard about it, so you might be lucky and catch the last of it if you go to the arena quickly."

Bakugo nodded in thanks as he got up and followed Itsuka, Ibara and Pony out of the ward. The explosive teen felt very satisfied after he defeated Akuma, and he hoped that said satisfaction was not going to be spoiled by whoever he fought in the final round not giving it their all. But he had no need to worry; Bakugo knew that Kirishima wouldn't hold back. And Bakugo would be lying to himself if he didn't admit that Izuku had some considerable power.

…Yeah. Bakugo felt that he was going to be happy with how everything else in the tournament went. He even forgot that his mom was currently dating Deku.

* * *

Bakugo and the girls from 1-B that he was walking with were making their way through the hallways in the stadium as they tried to head back out to the arena. After they made a turn, the group saw Mineta hopping up and down on his right foot as he held his left shin in both hands. Looking over in the direction of the other end of the hallway everyone was in, Itsuka saw Kinoko walking away, clearly in a huff.

Seeing the mushroom girl storm off like that also did not escape the notice of Bakugo, Pony and Ibara, so they and Itsuka all confronted Mineta who, given what all they could figure, seemed to be guilty of something. "Hey, Grape Head," Bakugo began, getting Mineta to look up at him and the 1-B girls. Pointing in the direction that Kinoko had stormed off in, Bakugo continued, "What the hell did you do to piss her off?"

"I don't know!" Mineta replied through hissed pain, "When I saw that she was upset and I asked what was wrong, she straight up kicked me in my shin, then turned around and stormed off while muttering something about the result of Midoriya's match with Kirishima." Gingerly setting his left leg back down, the infamous pervert said, "I saw the fight myself, and Midoriya won."

Folding his arms over his chest, Bakugo scoffed, "Feh. So I'm facing Deku in the last round."

"Wait a minute," Pony said, a curious and mildly confused look on her face, "Why would Kinoko be so upset that Kirishima lost?"

Shrugging indifferently, Mineta replied, "My guess is that she made a bet with someone that Kirishima would win, and him losing resulting in her losing a lot of money." With a gentle shake of his head, Mineta continued, "That's the best thing that I can come up with to explain why she's so upset with Kirishima losing."

"_I can think of another reason_," Itsuka thought dryly, while also wanting to have a talk with her mushroom-themed classmate later. The class 1-B rep had a very strong hunch about what was up with the mushroom girl.

Looking in the direction that Kinoko stormed off in, Mineta said, "You know, it would have been nice if she kicked high enough to make her skirt lift up enough so I could see what she had on underneath." With a dopey, clearly perverted look on his face, Mineta continued, "I bet that she has mushroom-print pant-" Mineta was cut off midsentence when Itsuka swung her right foot up and right into Mineta's hidden treasure, scoring a critical hit that sent Mineta sprawling on the cool tile floor of the hallway that they were all in.

As Mineta fell to the floor on his knees and the right side of his face, resulting in his rear sticking right up into the air as he covered his little Mineta with both of his hands, the 1-B girls and Bakugo all looked at him with mixed expressions. Most were variations of disgust from the girls, although Bakugo had a look of exasperated annoyance. Turning to face Itsuka, Bakugo remarked as his expression softened, "That was a nice punt. Have you ever considered playing football?"

END, CHAPTER SEVEN

Author's notes;

Sorry if some folks out there were expecting Akuma to go all the way to the final round of the tournament are disappointed that he was taken out in the semi-finals. Also, sorry that I didn't showcase any of the match between Izuku and Kirishima; I wanted the main focus of this chapter to be about Bakugo winning, as well as some of the aftermath. But yeah.

Anyway, next time we'll be getting into the last match of the tournament, which will be seeing Izuku and Bakugo throw down against each other. It's not the first time that the two of them have fought one another, but both boys are bringing new tricks to the table, so who's to say for certain who will be the one standing in the winner's spot on the award podium in the end?


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter eight: The tournament part five-Final Round

"Sorry if I did too much to hurt you, Kirishima," Izuku said apologetically as he, along with Uraraka, Todoroki and Tenya went to see their spiky red-haired classmate as he was being treated in the infirmary.

Holding up a hand in a gesture to cut off further argument, Kirishima merely smiled calmly. "It's no biggie, man," Kirishima remarked, "And I have to admit, that right hook of yours that you used to knock me out was one hell of a punch. And I had Red Riot Unbreakable active when you punched me hard enough to knock me out." Giving Izuku a curious look, the red-haired boy said, "Seriously, dude. What's your secret that lets you punch so hard? What sort of work out do you do? What do you eat? I want to be able to throw punches that hard!"

"I believe it has something to do with the fact that Midoriya is All Might's secret love child," Todoroki remarked, getting everyone to turn to regard him.

Izuku gave an exasperated sigh before trying to convince Todoroki that he was NOT All Might's secret love child. However, before the green-haired cinnamon roll could even get one word out, the door to that infirmary room was thrown open, getting the 1-A students inside to turn and see who it was that was making their way in. As such, Izuku, Kirishima, Uraraka, Todoroki and Tenya all saw Inko, who is Izuku's mom, and Mitsuki, who is Bakugo's mom/Izuku's girlfriend, walk into the room. Since they saw Mitsuki had her right leg raised a bit before she lowered it and walked in with Inko, the teens assumed that she was the one who opened the door, using a method that Todoroki observed from Bakugo in the past.

"_So THAT_'_S where Bakugo gets it from_," the dual-quirked boy thought as the two adult women walked into the room.

"Congratulations on winning, sweetie," Inko said to her son, "I hope you didn't hurt your classmate too badly. I mean, that punch really looked like it could have hurt him, even with what he had his quirk doing to protect him."

"It's okay, mom," Izuku replied, "I didn't break anything in Kirishima, if that's what you're worried about. I was kind of worried about it myself, which is why I asked Kirishima if he was okay just now."

Nodding in confirmation, Kirishima said to Inko, "It's true. He was asking more or less the same thing as you just now." Smirking a bit in amusement, Kirishima added, "I'm guessing that you're who Midoriya gets his attitude from."

Inko smiled warmly in response to what the hardening quirk boy said, and she was about to say something along the lines of how children tend to be like their parents. However, the full-bodied woman was cut off when Mitsuki went up to Izuku, threw her left arm around his shoulders, and dragged him into a one-armed hug that resulted in the right side of Izuku's face being shoved into the left side of Mitsuki's left breast.

"Your friend here has a point, babe," Mitsuki remarked, "And seriously. You kicked some major ass out there! I have a feeling that you're going to be heading all the way to the top!"

"Umm, Mrs. Bakugo," Tenya began, sounding a bit unsure of what to say as he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. Part of his trepidation came from seeing one of his classmates being fawned over by a woman more than twice their age, but another part came from Tenya's uncertainty to how said older woman would react to what he was about to tell her. "You do realize that Midoriya is set to fight Katsuki in the last round of the tournament, don't you?" the class rep of 1-A asked.

A dawning look of realization slowly appeared in Mitsuki's face. "…Oh shit," Mitsuki said. Letting go of Izuku, Mitsuki gripped the sides of her head with both hands as she exclaimed, "Oh shit! My son has to fight my boyfriend! Fuck! I have no idea who to cheer for!"

With mildly unsure looks on their faces, the 1-A students looked around at each other for a few seconds in silence. Said silence was broken when Izuku turned to look at Mitsuki. "…I have an idea that may work, Mitsuki," the green-eyed boy began, "Why don't you cheer for Kacchan, while my mother cheers for me? I mean, parents should support their children, regardless of who said children have to face, right?"

The ashy-haired woman looked to her younger boyfriend for a few seconds with a mildly surprised look on her face. "Are…" Mitsuki began, "…Are you sure that you wouldn't mind me not cheering for you to win, babe?"

Nodding in confirmation, Izuku replied, "I have a feeling that Kacchan will need as much of your support as possible."

Mitsuki looked at Izuku for a few more seconds in silence before she had a realization of sorts. "…Oh!" Mitsuki exclaimed suddenly, "I get it! Katsuki is still trying to deal with the stress of me getting divorced! I need to help him weather the same storm that I have to face since I'm not the only one that the divorce affected!"

"Yeah, sure, let's go with that," Uraraka remarked dryly, her gaze looking to the one side and helping to sell the air of dry knowingness that the gravity girl was giving off. If anyone had paid Uraraka close enough attention, they would have noticed that she didn't seem too happy at the moment, and that at least a good portion of said unhappiness stemmed from having to deal with a woman like Mitsuki Bakugo.

Getting up from the side of the hospital bed that he was sitting on, Izuku said, "Well, the only damage that Recovery Girl had to heal for me was some scraped skin on my left hand and a slight fracture in one of the bones of my left index finger. Since I'm good to go, I'm ready to face Kacchan as soon as the final round is announced."

"Yeah, sorry about that, dude," Kirishima said to Izuku in a mildly apologetic tone.

* * *

Despite how she, Itsuka, and Pony felt about the infamous pervert of class 1-A, Ibara could not in good conscious simply leave Mineta laying on the floor in the hallway like that after he was dealt a swift kick to his little Mineta by Itsuka. As such, the devout Christian of 1-B used one of her hair vines to grab and carry Mineta over to one of the infirmary rooms. Itsuka, Pony and Bakugo likewise followed her.

When they got Mineta to the infirmary room, one of the medics inside looked mildly exasperated with seeing Mineta being brought in. This medic was young adult man with shaggy shoulder-length sandy-blonde hair, mildly scruffy facial hair, and he wore a light green medical scrub top, a pair of maroon medical scrub leggings, and black shoes. Gesturing to Mineta, the male medic asked the 1-B girls and Bakugo with a rather strong hint of knowing in his tone, "Like, who kicked him in the balls _this_ time?"

"I did," Itsuka confessed, "And he was going on about how he thinks one of the girls in my class must be wearing a specific kind of underwear."

With a mildly exasperated sigh, the male medic gestured to one of the empty hospital beds and said, "Yeah, you can just dump him there."

"Said classmate that I'm talking about also kicked him in the left shin," Itsuka explained to the medic as Ibara deposited Mineta on the hospital bed in question, "But from what my friends and I here were able to gather, Mineta didn't do or say anything lewd to her to warrant the kick to his shin. My friend was just upset with the result of the last semi-final match."

Sighing to himself in a resigned tone, the male medic mumbled to himself, "Zoinks, that pervert will be the end of me, I swear." Looking to the 1-B girls and Bakugo, the male medic said with a hint of mild resignation in his tone, "Okay kids, thanks for bringing your schoolmate here so that he can receive treatment. I'll take things from here."

The 1-B girls and Bakugo nodded in confirmation before they turned around and left. Out of the four of them, only Ibara had any sympathy for Mineta, and that stemmed solely from her strong beliefs as a Christian to have sympathy for one's fellow man. "Yeah, you girls ought to be lucky that you don't have to deal with an idiot like Grape Head," Bakugo remarked as he and the 1-B girls walked in the hallways.

"I don't know, Bakugo," Itsuka began, a hint of knowing in her tone, "I mean, we have Monoma in 1-B, and I won't shy away from how I strongly believe that Monoma is the main reason why there's as much animosity between 1-A and 1-B as there is." Turning to properly face Bakugo, the class 1-B rep added, "Sorry again about all the trouble Monoma has caused for 1-A."

Giving Itsuka a curious, mildly confused look, Bakugo said, "Isn't Monoma that blonde hysteric holler monkey that's in your class?"

Right away, Itsuka and especially Pony both laughed in clear amusement in response to the explosive teen's remark concerning Monoma. Even Ibara had trouble holding back a few giggles as she tried to regain some composure. Seeing that the girls were all amused by his remark, Bakugo was glad that even some of Monoma's own classmates were not the biggest fans in the world of the 'blonde hysteric holler monkey'.

Bakugo even smiled a bit upon seeing how much Pony was laughing. After seeing how badly the half-American girl was hurt in her round two match, the explosive teen thought that seeing Pony enjoy herself was much needed. Bakugo's smile at Pony did not go unnoticed, as both Itsuka and Ibara saw him smiling at their classmate. As for Pony herself, she was laughing so hard that her eyes were closed, so she didn't see anything.

"I'm guessing that you're happy to see that Pony is doing better, Bakugo?" Ibara asked.

Blushing immediately, the explosive teen said, "Umm, yeah, well, it really pissed me off what that devil prick did to her in round two." Upon realizing that her friends and Bakugo were all talking about her, Pony stopped laughing and looked around at them. Gesturing to Pony with his right hand, Bakugo continued, "It's good that she's better and feeling well."

"I knew it!" Itsuka remarked suddenly in an excited and happy tone, pointing an accusing finger at Bakugo, "You care as much as I do about fixing the damage that Monoma has caused between our two classes so that all forty of us can be friends and not have any bad blood!"

Giving the class 1-B rep a mildly confused look, Bakugo replied, "Umm…yeah, that does sound nice, but it's not exactly what I was trying to get at." Focusing his attention on the half-American girl of 1-B, Bakugo said, "Umm, I kind of wished that there wasn't exactly an audience when I did this, but there's something that I want to tell you, Po-"

"Oi, Bakugo!" an excited and slightly caffeinated-sounding female voice called out, cutting the explosive teen off midsentence and prompting Bakugo and the 1-B girls to turn and see who it was that had called out. As such, they all saw Mei Hatsume, in her Workshop Gear outfit, come running up to the group, a pair of Bakugo's grenade gauntlets in her arms. "I saw your kickass fight where you kicked that villain devil guy's butt, Bakugo!" Mei said as she came up to him, "I also saw that your old pair of gauntlets were busted near the tail end of the fight." Holding out the new pair of gauntlets that she had with her, Mei explained, "Here's your new pair."

Smirking a bit in amusement, Bakugo received the new grenade gauntlets from Mei as he said, "Thanks, Crosshair Eyes. I'm going to be needing these when I face off against Deku in the last round real soon."

"They're more durable than the last pair you had," the caffeinated inventor explained, "So they should be able to go through more than one use of that super big attack you used near the tail end of your match against that villain devil guy." With a mildly curious look on her face, Mei asked, "What did you call that attack again? Big…Butt Attack, I want to say?"

"It's called Big _Bang_ Attack," the explosive teen corrected in a dry tone.

With a shrug, Mei replied, "I'm pretty sure that I used a similar attack after I had lunch at that taco place two blocks away from U.A. last week. But that's beside the point." Gesturing to Bakugo, Mei continued, "Anyway, that attack looked awesome! I bet I can create all sorts of gear to help that attack achieve optimal damage output. Is there any chance you'll be using it against Izuku?"

To the surprise of the girls, Bakugo gently shook his head. "I need the sweat tanks in both of the gauntlets to be at max capacity in order to use that move," Bakugo explained, "All of my attacks that I used against that devil prick prior to Big Bang Attack were from the sweat that I naturally had worked up during the match." Looking at his new pair of gauntlets, the explosive teen added, "Mind you, I _was_ planning to use my new big move in the last round to finish off whoever I was facing, but after I saw what that devil prick did in round two, and how I got to face said prick in round three…" sighing, Bakugo remarked, "…I just had to use it there and then."

Snapping her fingers in a mildly disappointed gesture, Mei said, "Dang it. Oh well." Giving Bakugo a slap on the outer side of his left bicep, the caffeinated inventor said, "Just be careful when you face Izuku. You aren't the only one I supplied gear to, you know."

"She made your grenade gauntlets?" Pony asked Bakugo when she turned to face him.

"The later, more improved versions such as this pair, yes," confirmed the explosive teen, "Some of the first pairs I had were made by a support company, and when Crosshair Eyes here saw my older pairs of gauntlets, she took it as a challenge to see if she could make a better pair. I was fine with it so long as they retained the same general appearance as the older pairs."

"He told me that he was fond of the aesthetic that his older pairs of gauntlets had," Mei remarked to the 1-B girls. Gesturing to the group, Mei continued, "Anyway, you all better get going out to the arena, because the girls have a match to watch and Bakugo has a match to take part in. I'll come along as well since I want to watch Bakugo go against Izuku live in the arena, instead of watching it on the TV in Power Loader-sensei's workshop."

The 1-B girls and Bakugo all nodded in understanding before they, with Mei tagging along with them, turned to go out to the arena of the stadium. Seeing the girls walk up a staircase that would take them to the bleachers, Bakugo told the girls that he was going to win it before turning to head straight out into the arena. What the girls didn't know was that, after they turned around to look straight up as they went up the stairs, Bakugo got one last look at Pony as her form went up the stairs, eventually disappearing from view.

Turning back around to face the corridor that would take him straight out of the hallway and into the arena, Bakugo merely shrugged to himself as he proceeded to walk out. "…_If I win against Deku_," Bakugo thought as he made his way, "_Then I_'_ll tell her_."

* * *

The cheering of the audience sitting in the bleachers reached a fever pitch as Izuku and Bakugo stood opposite of each other on the arena platform. Smirking a bit, Bakugo said, "I have to admit, Deku, I'm a bit surprise that you're who I'm facing in the last round. Kirishima is one hell of a challenge in a fight, given how much he can both take and dish out." Aiming his right fist at the green-eyed boy in a gesture meant to emulate a thumbs-up, the explosive teen continued, "You've improved since the last time we fought."

Izuku, despite his nerves messing with him because not only did he make it to the final round of the U.A. versus Vulcan High tournament but that he was fighting Bakugo in the final match, gave a nod of agreement. "…Yeah, Kacchan," Izuku replied, "I'm a lot better than I was during that last fight we had."

Lowing his outstretched arm back down to his side, Bakugo said with an amused smirk, "Then you better show me all of that improvement, Deku. Sandbag against me and not only will I know it, but I'll make you suffer for it." As Izuku nodded in the affirmative, the crowd's cheering went on as Hizashi spoke from the intercom system from where he and Aizawa were commenting on all of the matches in the tournament.

"We're here at the final fight, folks!" Hizashi said with his usual level of excitement, "And it's between two of U.A.'s very own, no less! Either way this match end up turning out, it will be U.A.'s time to be in the spotlight!"

"Both Midoriya and Bakugo have defeated notable opponents throughout their respective runs in this tournament before their fight here," Aizawa remarked in his usual dry tone, "And I think that it's safe to say that Bakugo's match from round three is by far the crowd favorite." With a gentle shake of his head, the underground hero continued, "But Midoriya has proven today that he is by no means a pushover. He defeated two notable students from Vulcan High in the first and second rounds, and then one of his own classmates in round three. It seems that history is repeating since Midoriya has to face another one of his own classmates in this round."

"Oh yeah," Hizashi said when he turned to face Aizawa, "Bakugo and Midoriya are both yours, aren't they?" The only answer that Aizawa gave was a gentle nod in the affirmative. Turning to look back out to the arena platform, Hizashi said, "Well anyway, we got the last match of the tournament about to kick off!"

Down in the arena, Nemuri hopped onto the arena platform and stood near the two boys from class 1-A as they (the boys) faced each other. "This match is between Katsuki Bakugo and Izuku Midoriya, both of U.A.!" Nemuri declared to the audience, her whip raised up high, as she was officiating the start of the match between the two boys, "Now then!" Giving a good crack with her whip, Nemuri exclaimed, "BEGIN!"

Despite knowing for a fact that he wasn't going to be able to use his Big Bang Attack against Izuku, Bakugo still felt that he was more than able to deal with the green-haired cinnamon roll. Rushing in close with Blast Rush Turbo, Bakugo took aim about half a dozen feet from Izuku before unleashing AP Shot: Auto-Cannon, hoping that multiple shots fired simultaneously and at point-blank range would do its work.

Izuku took a grazing hit from one of the shots that Bakugo had fired at him, but other than that he avoided the attack by using One for All: Full Cowl at the base five percent that he started with back when he first got Full Cowl. After gaining some distance, Izuku made a slight curve in his path so that he could come back around to return the favor that Bakugo had just paid him with, via a five percent Detroit Smash.

The explosive teen, still stuck in place as he was still letting out the last of the shots from his attack that he had just hit Izuku with, was unable to get out of the way before he was struck in his left shoulder by the powerful punch, knocking him back. Recovering quickly, Bakugo stood at a distance as he fired off a number of regular explosions that he threw at Izuku, who had to duck and swerve around with Full Cowl to avoid all of them. The green-eyed boy even had to bump it up from five to seven percent in order to avoid one of the last explosions.

Bakugo held the palms of his hands in front of each other as a sphere of light began to form. Knowing what was coming, Izuku quickly closed his eyes and held his arms in front of his face as Bakugo yelled, "Stun Grenade!" The blinding flash of explosive light radiated out all over the arena platform, obscuring what was going on and making most of the people who were watching the match cover their eyes.

The seventeen 1-A students that were watching the match (two of their classmates were _in_ said match, and Mineta was still in the infirmary), along with all twenty of the 1-B students, Mei Hatsume and, surprisingly enough, Hitoshi Shinso of class 1-C (he joined them after he came back from getting something for lunch, which he said he had with someone but wouldn't say who when pressed), all had to cover their eyes with their arms due to the blinding flash of light that Bakugo had generated.

Down on the arena platform, Izuku was trying to avoid being blinded, but due to how he was trying to protect himself from Bakugo's Stun Grenade, the explosive teen was able to rush in and deal a slugging punch to Izuku's stomach, making him cough up a bit of bile and send him reeling back. The green-eyed boy was able to recover right when the light from the Stun Grenade faded, and with him being able to see, he went right back in to continue the fight.

Getting in close, Izuku dealt a slamming strike to Bakugo's left side with a kick that actually was Izuku slamming his right shin into Bakugo's aforementioned side. This sent Bakugo flying a bit, but he recovered mid-throw and landed back on the ground of the arena platform on his toes and clenched hands, causing some kicked up dust marks to appear due to the drag. Leaping back up, Bakugo flew in close to Izuku, using some of his explosions.

Getting within attack range of the green-haired cinnamon roll, Bakugo took aim as he yelled, "Howitzer Impact!" A huge explosion flew out and engulfed the side of the arena platform that Izuku was on. A good number of people that were in the audience went wild as the explosive teen unleashed so powerful of an attack against Izuku, entertained by all of the explosive power that was being thrown around. Seeing that Izuku was lost in the sea of explosion, Bakugo could not help but smirk a bit, as well as let out a bit of a chuckle.

It was for that reason why, when he sensed something appear behind him, Bakugo turned around and saw, to his surprise, that Izuku was not only there, but had very clearly dodged his Howitzer Impact. The green-eyed boy was also clearly using Full Cowl at more than the seven percent that he had it up to when he avoided one of Bakugo's explosions earlier in their fight; from the looks of it, Izuku was currently using twenty percent with Full Cowl.

As Bakugo was standing there, partly due to not being able to move since he was still getting out the last of the Howitzer Impact he was using at that moment, but also a bit due to shock at seeing Izuku suddenly appear right there, the green-haired cinnamon roll aimed his left hand at Bakugo while making a gesture with his middle finger and thumb, looking like he was right about to flick something at the explosive teen.

Izuku also had the palm of his right hand covering the top of his left wrist, as if he were trying to keep his left hand's aim on Bakugo steady. A well of pressure began to surge, ready to be fired by the flick that Izuku was preparing to use. Bakugo was even surprised that Izuku could even flick his fingers, given that those gloves that he was wearing, being bulky white numbers with green palms and had orange bits all over, didn't look like they offered enough flexibility to allow Izuku to flick his fingers.

But apparently they did, and Izuku flicked his finger as he shouted, "Delaware Smash Air Force!" Suddenly, Bakugo was hit by a concussive blast of air that Izuku's finger flick must have fired at him. The air blast was so powerful that it sent the explosive teen flying back. Bakugo didn't know how he would recover from this as he was reeling and tumbling, up until he finally stopped thanks to slamming his back into a wall.

Right as Bakugo got up after his little trip was stopped, he heard Nemuri loudly crack her whip. Opening his eyes, which he closed due to the sheer force of him being thrown by Izuku's attack, he saw that he was no longer on the arena platform. "Katsuki Bakugo has been thrown out of bounds!" Nemuri announced to the wildly cheering audience, "The winner is Izuku Midoriya!"

"Well alright, ladies and gentlemen!" Hizashi said over the intercom from where he and Aizawa were commenting on the tournament matches, "Let's hear it for the winner of the U.A. versus Vulcan High tournament, U.A.'s very own Izuku Midoriya!"

"Out of all of the matches in this tournament," Aizawa began to comment, "This match between Midoriya and Bakugo was the only one that was determined by a ring out. Aside from this match and the match where Komori surrendered to Kirishima, all of the matches were won when one of the competing students straight up defeated their opponent on the arena platform." Crossing his arms over his chest, the underground hero remarked, "I'm glad to see that Midoriya remembered that there were alternative ways to win a match in this tournament."

As the crowd cheered for the victorious Izuku, Bakugo looked on in shock. He couldn't believe that he lost because Izuku had knocked him out of bounds. However, and to his own surprise no less, Bakugo found himself relaxing, his shock fading. He had no clue why, but Bakugo found that he didn't exactly mind losing this match to Izuku. At least it was a fair and square win that Izuku got against him. With a hint of amusement in his smirk, the explosive teen began to calmly applaud Izuku. "…About damn time you proved yourself, Deku," Bakugo remarked to himself.

* * *

Toshinori was amazed by the match between Izuku and Bakugo. And the former symbol of peace's pride shot way up when his protégé won not just the match, but the entire tournament as a whole. With how he was feeling, Toshinori bet that he could maintain his hero form for more than a few brief instants; maybe ten seconds tops. Hell, Toshinori bet that he might shoot up into his hero form without meaning to, he felt so good.

However, the retired hero's focus was shifted when he heard the familiar voice of Endeavor call out, "ALL MIGHT!" Turning around, the matchstick of a man saw his successor to the position of number one pro hero come walking up to him. To Toshinori's curiosity, Endeavor had a smirk of amusement on his face. "That brat of yours did well to win," Enji Todoroki remarked, "I bet that you must be proud."

"It was a hard fought match, Enji," Toshinori replied, "And yes, I will admit that Young Midoriya has come a very long way. However, we must not forget that Young Bakugo, as well as all of the students that competed in the tournament, both those from U.A. and those from Vulcan High, had done spectacularly as well. They, too, all deserve to be commended for all of their hard work."

The current number one pro hero nodded briskly in agreement. "I may still be biased when I say this," Endeavor began, "But I still believe that Shoto should have been in the tournament. He would have improved immensely from fighting such a mix of opponents. I especially would have liked to have seen Shoto go up against Akuma from Vulcan High." Gently shaking his head, Endeavor remarked with a hint of disgust in his tone, "I'm still hearing whispers here and there that claim that Akuma boy to be a villain."

"I agree that people ought to give Young Giratina more than just a skimming on the surface," the former symbol of peace agreed, "I mean, you said it yourself, Endeavor. Just because he has the look of a villain does not mean that he is one or similarly will become one."

With amusement in his expression, Endeavor folded his arms over his chest. "Heh, quoting me word for word, eh?" Giving Toshinori a wry look, Endeavor remarked, "I ought to charge you a royalty fee for that." Recognizing the joke, Toshinori let out as much of a laugh as he could manage without causing another coughing fit. "But seriously, back to what I was saying," Enji continued, "I would have loved it if Shoto was in the tournament and got to go against Akuma."

"I assume you'd want your son to test the fire side of his quirk against the black flames of Young Giratina's quirk?" Toshinori remarked, saying it more as a statement than an actual question.

"I've never seen black flames in action before, All Might," the current number one pro hero remarked, "They're different compared to the regularly colored flames that Shoto and I can make with our quirks." With a look of consideration on his face, Enji continued, "There's also the blue flames that are produced by the Cremation quirk of that detestable villain Dabi, which would be a great test of power for Shoto's fire to face. I would really like to see Shoto test his fire against the _golden_ flames produced by-"

"ENJI!" Toshinori exclaimed forcefully, even temporarily shoot into his hero form, as he cut Endeavor off midsentence. "You are forgetting that we cannot speak aloud anything that relates to quirks of _that_ level while not in the privacy of a closed-off meeting," Toshinori scolded while maintaining his hero form.

Seeing the temporary and brief return of All Might, Endeavor was snapped out of the trail of thought that he was on. "…You're right, All might," Enji said, surprisingly sounding like he was a little ashamed of himself. Even his tone was a bit subdued, sounding as if he was just greatly humbled. "I forgot myself there for a moment," Endeavor remarked solemnly, "Apologies." As Toshinori returned to his true form, Endeavor sighed and said with a distinct hint of somberness in his tone, "I must be mad to want to see Shoto to go up against _that kind_ of quirk. If Shoto _did_ get into a fight against someone with such a quirk, then the only result would be my youngest son _losing his life_."

"We must be thankful that the only people with quirks of _that_ level are all heroes," Toshinori remarked to the current number one pro hero, "Which is yet another reason why the world has been able to be at peace for as long as it has." Clearing his throat with a cough, Toshinori said, "Well anyway, I must be going. Before you found me, I was trying to find Young Midoriya so that I could properly congratulate him for winning the tournament."

Nodding once in understanding, Endeavor let out a bit of a self-amused smirk. "Yeah, go," Endeavor said with a wave of his hand, "The brat has earned being showered in praise today." The current number one pro hero then turned around and walked away, leaving Toshinori be as he himself turned to continue seeking out Izuku.

* * *

"Wow, Kacchan," Izuku remarked as he and Bakugo walked through one of the hallways; neither boy was banged up enough to warrant a trip to the infirmary, surprisingly enough, so the two of them decided that they would just meet up with their classmates and everyone else who was there at the stadium to watch them perform in the tournament. "You're taking your loss a lot better than I thought you would," the green-eyed boy continued as the two U.A. students made their way through the hallway.

Bakugo let out a wry scoff, mildly annoyed, but understanding it a little, that Izuku would have made such an assumption about him. "…Well you didn't sandbag me," the explosive teen began to defend, "And you didn't cheat or nothing, either." Shrugging indifferently, Bakugo said, "No way I can be upset with a loss like that."

Izuku smiled a bit, amazed by Bakugo's continued growth and maturing as a person. "And here I thought that you were going to use our match in the tournament as an excuse to make me suffer due to me dating your mom," Izuku remarked, only to draw a (moderately painful) punch to his the side of his left arm from Bakugo.

Giving Izuku a scowling, annoyed look, Bakugo said, "…Yeah, I'm still pissed off that you're banging the old hag."

"Umm…" Izuku began, his tone clearly nervous, "…If it helps any, your mother and I haven't, umm, 'banged each other' yet."

Bakugo looked fit to fly into a tangent at the green-haired cinnamon roll, but before he could scream even one word at Izuku to chew his head off, both boys were called out to by a cheering group of people. Looking over, Izuku and Bakugo saw a mix of 1-A and 1-B students waving at the both of them; there was Kirishima, Yaoyorozu, Uraraka, Tenya, Todoroki, Kaminari, Sero, Mina and (a very clearly in pain) Mineta from their class, and all seven of the girls from 1-B. "That fight between the two of you was super-manly!" Kirishima congratulated Bakugo and Izuku as he gave the two of them a double thumbs-up, "Way to go, bros!"

With an amused smirk, Bakugo said, "Well, I beat Deku in a fight that we had sometime before the tournament today. It makes sense that he learned from our previous fight and made sure to keep the fight we had today from being just a repeat experience." Turning to face Izuku, Bakugo remarked, "That being said, the next time we fight, I intend to avenge my loss today. You have been warned, Deku."

Returning the explosive teen's smirk, Izuku replied, "Oh, we'll see if you win the next time the two of us fight. We'll see."

"Hey, are you guys ready for that award ceremony?" Kaminari asked curiously, "Since you two got first and second place, you'll both be getting medals."

Nodding a few times, Bakugo said, "Yeah, Deku and I were told that the ceremony will occur later, after both Kirishima and that devil prick are both healed enough to have a match to figure out who will place third."

Activating his quirk only in his hands and forearms, Kirishima banged his fists together, making a clanging sort of sound in the process, as he said, "And like hell I'll let him take me out! I'd like to see those black flames of his try to get through my hardened defense!"

"You may want to be careful, Red Hair," Pony remarked, her tone and expression looking mildly concerned and a bit rattled, "That guy is very scary."

"Pony has a point on how exercising caution when you face that devil would be a good idea," Ibara said. Although she looked and sounded nowhere near as worried as her half-American classmate, the devout Christian of 1-B clearly sounded like she agreed with Pony's words of concern. Ibara would have continued to speak, but she was cut off when she felt a hand lay on her left shoulder; likewise, Pony felt a hand lay on her right shoulder.

Both girls turned around and saw, to their curiosity, that their classmate Kinoko was getting their attention. "…You two are forgetting that Eijiro made it just as far in the tournament as the guy that he'll be facing to determine third place. He's also a lot stronger than you two are giving him credit for." Removing her hands from the shoulders of her classmates, allowing her arms to hang at her sides, the mushroom girl said, "I'm sure that Eijiro will win."

The U.A. students were all silent, partly out of surprise, and on Yaoyorozu's part there was a bit of fear since she's still a bit unsettled by the mere presence of Kinoko. However, Kirishima flashed an appreciative smile as he gave Kinoko a thumbs-up. "Thanks for the support," the red-haired boy remarked, "Glad to see that you aren't selling me short." Kirishima, as well as all of the others that were there aside from Itsuka (who was paying very close attention) didn't notice it, but Kinoko blushed when the hardening quirk boy thanked her for being supportive of him.

* * *

The match to determine third place in the tournament was a notably flashy one. Given that it was Vulcan High's last chance to get at least one student on the award podium, Akuma was spurred on by his classmates and the principal to hold nothing back. With just as much mercilessness as he had in all of his previous matches in the tournament, the Satanist of Vulcan High rushed in at Kirishima with the black flames of Hellfire the moment Nemuri gave the signal that the match had officially been started.

Akuma was a bit shocked to see that Kirishima was able to tank his Burning Mark technique by hardening the entirety of his body. The hardening quirk boy then rushed in and started to throw a number of punches, as well as a few kicks for good measure, striking Akuma many times. At one point, after he got enough distance from Kirishima, Akuma immediately unleashed Hail Satan in the hopes that so powerful a move would be enough to take out Kirishima. When the red-haired boy was engulfed in the black flames, Akuma smirks, thinking that his victory was assured.

But then Kirishima, in his Red Riot Unbreakable form, rushed out of the black flames that engulfed him, went right at Akuma, and struck him in the gut with Red Gauntlet, making the Satanist of Vulcan High cough up a lot of bile. When Kirishima took his fist back, Akuma fell to his knees, a blank look of pain in his eyes, before sprawling out over the ground on the arena platform, thankfully avoiding falling right into the puddle of what he coughed up.

"Akuma Giratina has been defeated!" Nemuri declared after checking and confirming that Akuma was down for the count. With a crack of her whip, the eighteen-only hero declared, "The winner is Eijiro Kirishima!" The crowd went wild as Kirishima was declared the winner. The red-haired boy, as he looked around at the crowd that was cheering for him, stopped using his Red Riot Unbreakable mode, returning to his regular form when not using his quirk. Those who were on U.A.'s side were particularly wild with their cheering; after all, with Kirishima's win, all three spots on the award podium would be occupied by U.A. students.

"Hmm, interesting," Kyoka remarked aloud as she and the other 1-A and 1-B students saw Kirishima win, "It would seem that while that villain guy from Vulcan High is powerful, if he faces someone strong enough to deal with his attacks and retaliate with sufficient power, then he will find himself in a bit of trouble. Both Bakugo and Kirishima were able to put up with his black flames and strike him enough to take him out."

"So he can deal strong hits," Tsuyu began when she turned to face Kyoka, who sat right next to her on her right, "But can't take very much in return. He sounds like he would be good in short fights, but may go down in the long run kero."

Yaoyorozu, who sat behind both Kyoka and Tsuyu, nodded in agreement, and was about to say something. However, she was cut off when Kinoko stood up, pumped both of her fists into the air and cheered as loudly as she could, "WOOHOO! EIJIRO WON! YES!" Although the mushroom girl's cheering was drowned out in the sea of cheers from all around the stadium, a few people heard Kinoko cheer for Kirishima's win. All of the 1-A and 1-B girls, for example, heard Kinoko as all of the girls sat together in a concentrated group. Next to the girls were the boys of 1-A and 1-B, and only a few of them even noticed what Kinoko was doing.

* * *

The 1-A and 1-B students all met up outside of the stadium, being there to greet Izuku, Bakugo and Kirishima; the boys wore a gold medal, silver medal and bronze medal respectively. "I knew that those Vulcan High extras were nothing compared to us here at U.A.," Bakugo remarked. Looking to the large group of students, the explosive teen said, "So, what are we doing now? Are we going to try to figure out some way for all forty of us to have a celebratory party, or anything else along those lines?"

Gently shaking her head, Itsuka said, "Although such a party sounds great, it will have to wait until _after_ my classmates and I get back from the United States."

"Wait a minute," Izuku began, "Excuse me?"

With a self-amused smirk on his face, Monoma said, "That's right, 1-A! We of 1-B are the first to go on an international field trip! Sekijiro-sensei said that we'll be heading out sometime within the next two days for some town in the state of Michigan." With a conceited smirk on his face, Monoma continued, "How does it feel, 1-A? You aren't the first to represent U.A. to the world at large! It's alright to be jealous of us, for we are-"

Monoma would have gone on with the tangent, but he was knocked out via a chop to the back of his head, courtesy of Itsuka's oversized hand, which shrunk back down to regular size. Sighing in a resigned tone, the 1-B class rep said, "Sorry that Monoma continued to bother you guys with that stuff. It's part of the reason why I want to try to create more of a friendly air between our respective classes."

"Well you guys aren't the only ones who have to deal with a troublesome classmate," Mina remarked, a hint of knowing in her tone. At that prompting, Mina and every other 1-A girl all turned to send accusing glares right at Mineta.

When the 1-A girls were all done giving Mineta the evil eye, Itsuka clapped her hands together. "Well then, girls," Itsuka began, "Are we all ready for our little girl's only celebration?" Not only did the 1-B girls all cheer in the affirmative, but the 1-A girls as well, drawing surprised looks out of all of the boys. "Oh yeah, boys," Itsuka began to explain, "The girls in both of our respective classes decided to get together to celebrate U.A. winning all of the medals today in the tournament against Vulcan High. Since it will be only us girls heading out, you boys are free to get together to do your own thing."

After a few more formalities were taken care of, all of the girls from both 1-A and 1-B took off in a collective group, leaving the boys behind. Turning to face the guys, Bakugo said, "How about we just head back to the dorms and have a party in the main area? 1-A will host. We can bring a lot of sodas and grindage, and play video games against each other."

"Please, allow our class to host the party," Monoma remarked in his usual conceited manner after he recovered, "After all, it's the last 1-B can do for 1-A since we're leaving you in the dust as the first between the two of us to go on an international field trip."

With an indifferent shrug, Bakugo said, "Sure. Whatever. I don't give a fuck." Pointing to the hysteric holler monkey, the explosive teen said, "Just don't piss everyone else off."

"Yeah, I'm going to have to side with Bakugo on this one," Juzo said as he turned to face his conceited classmate, "We're trying to celebrate and have a good time tonight, and you trying to grill 1-A like you always do won't help the mood, dude."

While Monoma was, albeit grudgingly, conceding the point to Juzo and the other 1-B boys, the boys of 1-A had a bit of a different discussion. "So Midoriya," Mineta began, his tone making it clear that he was wanting to know more, "You're dating Bakugo's mom now."

"Yeah," Izuku replied as he rubbed the back of his head a bit, clearly embarrassed that things were taking this turn right away. Bakugo was similarly upset, but he was pissed rather than being embarrassed. After all, the infamous pervert was talking about his (Bakugo's) mom.

Gesturing to Izuku, Mineta began, "Say, we're all friends, right? Maybe you could let some of us…you know…have a go at her? I mean, she has an awe-" Mineta would have gone on with what he was trying to say, but he was interrupted when Izuku, with a casual look on his face, swung his right foot up and into Mineta's hidden treasure, scoring a critical hit. Such a hit sent Mineta falling over backwards, landing on the ground face up as he covered his wounded holy land with both of his hands.

As he looked at his classmate whose hidden treasure he just critted, Izuku said, "Mineta, man, seriously. That's my girlfriend that you're talking about."

END, CHAPTER EIGHT

Author's notes;

And that does it for the 'U.A.-v-Vulcan High tournament arc'. It was a wild ride, we saw some good fights, and the ground work for the main relationship in this story, that being Izuku and Mitsuki, has been laid. I kind of wished that I was able to do more with it in the first arc, but it just didn't pan out like that, I'm afraid. But then again, this _is_ my first-ever go at trying to write a romance story (i.e. my first story I got up here with the romance tag); I'm not very used to writing for the genre yet, but I bet that the romance in this story, and not just that between Izuku and Mitsuki, will get more prevalent in the coming chapters.

Speaking of the coming chapters, the next chapter will be the beginning of this story's second arc, which I am calling the 'Crossover Field Trip arc'. The purpose of this arc is to show Izuku and all of our favorite BNHA/MHA folks that the world is not limited to just U.A. and the various other places in the BNHA/MHA setting. It's a big world out there, and sooner or later, our favorite heroes-in-training are going to have to get out there and see all that the world has to offer them. They're also really going to need as much experience as they can get their hands on, especially given what I have planned much later in this story.

But 'much later in this story' is still far off. What isn't far off is the next chapter of this story, which will see a certain someone close to the hearts of both Izuku and Inko. We all heard the story; Hisashi Midoriya, father of Izuku and husband of Inko, works abroad after taking a work post. Well, what _exactly_ does the Midoriya patriarch do in his work abroad? Well, that's what we're going to be seeing in chapter nine.

Also, this is the longest chapter of this story to date. Yay.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter nine: Patriarch Abroad

A Japanese man was sitting in a corner booth in a diner somewhere in the state of Michigan, located in the Midwestern part of the United States. This man stood six feet three inches tall, he had a lean yet healthy body, fair skin, green eyes (with some freckles located underneath each eye), and green hair that was long enough to reach about halfway down his shoulder blades, also the hair looked somewhat messy, as if it was reminiscent of a certain cinnamon roll of a boy living in Japan.

For his outfit, it seemed to be casual wear for the most part, and more at home when worn by a teenage boy; a baggy long-sleeved light gray shirt under a similarly baggy tannish t-shirt with the logo of a popular name brand Root Beer over the area of the chest, a pair of light tannish cargo pants held up with a simple black leather belt, and a pair of light gray, somewhat clunky-looking sneakers with black lightning bolt stripes on the outer sides.

He also wore a few minor pieces of jewelry here and there; simple accessories that would suit a man very well. A plain black metal band ring on his right ring finger, a men's chain bracelet on his left wrist, a simple men's chain necklace around his neck, and simple gray metal stud earrings, one in each earlobe. Although the Japanese man was very clearly an adult, he clearly had the look of a young adult, what with how he dressed and accessorized. The average passerby would have estimated this Japanese man to be no older than twenty.

So, as one could imagine, said average passerby would be very much surprised when the Japanese man would inform them that he is, in fact, forty-two years of age.

The Japanese man was currently finishing up his light breakfast at the diner, a cozy place that was called Eat Diner Coffee Shop. His breakfast was a simple plain bagel, with strawberry-flavored cream cheese spread, and a moderately big mug of coffee, hazelnut-flavored and with hazelnut-flavored creamer. The man had to keep his first meal of the day light for a variety of reasons, one of which he was taking care of as he spoke on a cellphone.

"You know, Nezu," the man said as he spoke into the phone, "I'm quite surprised that you're the contact that I have with the boss. I was told that you would be having your hands rather full in running U.A., but I suppose that I shouldn't be all that surprised. After all, you are bar none the most intelligent person that I'm familiar with. The boss must see that too, hence why she thought that bringing you on in the capacity of expert consultant on the case that we're working must have been a very good idea."

"Her organization is keen on stopping the group of world renowned expert thieves that you have secretly infiltrated, Hisashi," the familiar voice of Nezu, the principal of U.A. High School which is located over in Japan, replied from the other end, "Although while we're on the subject, are you sure it's wise to talk to me over the phone about this information, especially since you told me that you're in a public location?"

With a self-amused chuckle, the Japanese man in the diner, revealed to be named Hisashi, simply replied, "The cellphone I'm using is unhackable, so no one can listen in on our talk by trying to hack my phone. Also, we're both speaking Japanese, a language that I'm the only one in this area can speak and understand fluently. None of the people in the thieves group that I infiltrated can speak any language other than English, so even if any of them were listening to the two of us, they'd have no idea what we were even saying."

"Ah, that's an excellent point," the quirked animal replied in an understanding tone. After a few brief instants of silence, Nezu said, "Oh, remember when we last spoke, and I told you that U.A. had that tournament against Vulcan High?"

"How could I forget?" Hisashi remarked, "You told me that my son Izuku was one of the U.A. students who was chosen to represent your school."

"And represent U.A. he did," Nezu said, "Believe it or not, Izuku ended up winning the whole tournament, ringing out his classmate Katsuki Bakugo in the final round after a long fought and very hard battle."

The Japanese man, revealed to be the Midoriya patriarch, could not help but let out a bark of laughter that clearly carried amusement and sincere pride. "Wow, I bet that Inko must have gone crazy when our son won the tournament," Hisashi remarked, "And against Masaru and Mitsuki's boy, no less!"

"Yes, yes," Nezu began, "Their match was actually the only match in the entire tournament against Vulcan High that was determined by a ring out. There was also a surrender during the second round where one of the girls from Sekijiro's homeroom class surrendered to one of the boys in Aizawa's homeroom class, but other than that match and the match where Izuku defeated Katsuki, all of the matches in the tournament were determined when a competitor straight-up defeated their opponent on the arena platform."

Hisashi let out a smirking chuckle before saying, "I guess that goes to show that the future generation of heroes are a hell of a lot more resilient, going all out until the end." Hisashi leaned back in his seat in the booth before saying, "And Izuku, who I didn't know was such a late bloomer when it came to having a quirk, is among that determined lot. I'm rather proud of him, that son of mine."

Looking around the diner that he was having breakfast in, the Midoriya patriarch said, "Oh, I should wrap this up. I have to meet up with the thieves group that I infiltrated. We're going to be discussing a heist plan that will be carried out later tonight against some local wealthy resident living over here known as Lord Tetherby."

"Don't let me keep you from your work, Hisashi," Nezu replied in a friendly and understanding tone, "And I'll inform your boss about everything that you brought to my attention. She's going to be ecstatic with how much you were able to get on the thieves group you infiltrated."

"Thanks again, Nezu," Hisashi said, "And do keep an eye on my son for me, will you?" The quirked animal laughed in good nature upon hearing the Midoriya patriarch's request, a notably clear sign that he will honor said request either way, before the call between the two men ended when Hisashi ended the call on his end, folded his cell phone (it was a flip phone) up before he slipped it back into his left front pants pocket.

Right after Hisashi put his phone away, a waitress working at the diner came up to the booth that Hisashi sat at. "(Excuse me, sir,)" the waitress said in English, "(But some of the other staff here and I heard you talking a bit in some language none of us understood.)"

Turning to face the waitress, Hisashi began to explain himself. "(My apologies, ma'am,)" Hisashi replied perfectly in English with just the barest hint of accent in his words, "(I was just talking to a colleague of mine back in Japan. I'm here in the United States on business.)"

"(Oh, you're Japanese!)" the waitress remarked, sounding surprised, "(If that's the case, then if you're looking for a place to have lunch at later today and you want to feel as much at home as possible, then might I recommend one of the local fusion restaurants? It's a place called Odin-Dono's Swedish-Japanese cuisine, and it serves both Swedish and Japanese dishes.)"

The waitress's suggestion piqued the Midoriya patriarch's interest. "(A local place here that serves Japanese food?)"

Nodding in confirmation, the waitress explained, "(Both the Swedish and Japanese foods are as authentic as you can get without actually going to the respective countries.)"

"(Well real Japanese food does sound like it'll make me feel more at home here,)" Hisashi began, "(But why does the place also serve Swedish food?)"

"(It was opened by a mixed couple,)" the waitress explained, "(The wife is from Sweden and the husband, who sadly was killed in an accident five years ago, was from Japan. The wife currently runs it with the help of her employees, also the wife's children tend to pitch in from time to time, especially the older ones.)" With another nod, the waitress added, "(Well anyway, are you ready to pay for your meal?)"

Hisashi nodded in the affirmative as he pulled out enough money to cover his simple breakfast, telling the waitress the difference was a tip. The waitress's eyes widened, given that Hisashi's meal was less than five dollars after tax, and he paid for his meal with a fifty dollar bill. As the waitress profusely thanked him for so generous a tip, the Midoriya patriarch nodded once in a gesture to tell the waitress that she was welcome, then without any other fanfare, he left.

* * *

Hisashi walked briskly along the sidewalk, strolling past a local shopping mall, which was called Royal Woods Mall, when he nearly bumped into a group of seven high school-aged girls. "(Oh, my apologies, girls,)" Hisashi apologized in English, "(I'm just in a hurry is all.)"

One of the girls, who had long blonde hair and, Hisashi just noticed this, a pair of lyre-shaped horns growing out of her head, as well as hooves instead of feet, looked at him with a curious look. "…Are you…" the horned and hooved girl began tentatively in Japanese, "…From Japan?"

Surprise was clear on Hisashi's face when the girl not only spoke Japanese, but well enough for him to understand. "You're from Japan as well?" Hisashi replied, speaking in his native tongue.

Gesturing to herself and her friends that she was with, the horned and hooved girl said, "My friends here and I are all from Japan. We're here in the States on a field trip."

"We're students attending U.A. High School," said a girl with ginger hair that was tied into a ponytail that hung on the one side of her head, "If you're familiar with it, then you should know that it's Japan's top school for training the next generation of heroes." With a somewhat amused look on her face, the ginger-haired girl continued, "My classmates and I who all came here on the field trip are all in U.A.'s hero course."

Pointing to the girls, Hisashi said, "Yeah, I do know about U.A.! In fact, my son is enrolled at your school and he's also in the hero course." Giving the girls a curious look, Hisashi asked, "Do any of you know Izuku Midoriya?"

"Wait a minute!" a girl with long, dark moss green hair said, a look of surprise on her face as she pointed to Hisashi, "You're Izuku's dad?!"

"Damn right I am!" the Midoriya patriarch as he took out his wallet, opened it, and pulled out a relatively recent photo that showed him with Inko and Izuku.

The girls all looked at the photo before some of them began to squeal excitedly. "So Izuku _does_ have a dad!" said the ginger-haired girl, "I knew it! Monoma owes me money now!" One of the girls in the group, a girl with honey-brown hair in a bob style, and said girl wore a long-sleeved dress that made her look somewhat like a Victorian-era doll, took out a smartphone and, with the okay from Hisashi, took a picture of him, then a picture of the photo he pulled out.

After the girls all settled down, Hisashi asked, "Say, I don't suppose you girls can tell me where I can find Izuku, could you? I'd like to catch up with my son."

"Oh, Izuku isn't in our class," said a girl with long green hair that resembled thorny vines, "My classmates and I are in class 1-B. Izuku is in class 1-A."

Snapping his fingers to convey mild disappointment, the Midoriya patriarch said, "Dang it. It would have been nice if I had a chance to talk with Izuku. Oh well." To the girls as a whole, Hisashi said, "Well I suppose I bothered you girls enough. Can any of you tell my son that I said hello when you all get back to U.A.?"

Giving Hisashi a playful salute, a gray-haired girl with one of her eyes obscured by her hair said, "You got it, captain." Hisashi nodded once in thanks before he turned to walk around the girls and continued on his way.

After Hisashi was gone, the ginger-haired girl said, "Well that was nice, but now we have to focus on what we came here to do while Sekijiro-sensei takes care of the hotel arrangements for our class." Pointing right at Royal Woods Mall, the ginger-haired girl said, "We're going to be checking out an American mall!" The other girls all cheered excitedly as they followed their friend towards the mall.

* * *

The class 1-B girls had a great time as they looked around Royal Woods Mall. One of the shops happened to be a souvenir store; perfect for the girls, as they were visiting the United States from Japan. "H-Hey, umm, Itsuka," Kinoko began nervously as she held out a men's 2XL t-shirt that said 'Royal Woods' in big bold capital letters, "D-Do you think that E-E-Eijiro would like this?"

Itsuka smiled in a comforting, reassuring manner; Itsuka, as well as all of the other class 1-B girls, were well aware that their mushroom-themed friend was very much in love with Eijiro Kirishima of class 1-A. Itsuka was further surprised that _only_ she and the other 1-B girls were aware of this, especially given how obvious the signs that Kinoko was displaying were. Momo Yaoyorozu and her teammates from their go in the joint training exercise from a while ago, as well as a few others who noticed, all came to the conclusion that Kinoko was, for some odd reason, actually _afraid_ of Kirishima, with Kinoko's surrender to him in the recent tournament against Vulcan High being evidence of this belief.

But no, the mushroom girl found that her heart was stolen by hardening quirk boy with spiky red hair. And Itsuka, who cared for all of the other 1-B girls, wanted to do what she could to help Kinoko get Kirishima's attention. Placing her right hand on Kinoko's shoulder in a reassuring gesture, Itsuka said, "I'm sure that he'll like it, Kinoko. A souvenir shirt can never go wrong, at least if you ask for my opinion."

"I hope s-so," Kinoko replied nervously, her mild stuttering a sign that simply thinking about the boy who stole her heart (even though he had no idea that he did so) made the mushroom quirk girl very nervous. Sighing, Kinoko continued as she faced the other 1-B girls as a whole, "Sorry about being so fidgety about this, girls. It's just that I have no idea about what to do here. I mean, I'm in love with a boy. And he's from class 1-A, no less."

"There's nothing wrong with you being in love with one of the boys from 1-A," Reiko replied in a reassuring manner, "Although while we're on the subject, I think that one of the 1-A boys is in love with me."

Turning somewhat quickly to face Reiko, Setsuna asked with a hint of eagerness in her tone, "Ooh, you stole a 1-A boy's heart? Which one is it?"

With a mildly unsure look on her face, Reiko replied, "I think that it's Midoriya's friend Todoroki. But don't quote me on that."

"This may sound kind of self-absorbed of me," Pony began, "But I think that Explosion Boy in class 1-A is in love with me." With a mildly unsure look on her face, the half-American girl asked her friends, "I don't sound too stuck up for thinking that a boy might love me, do I?"

"It's no problem, Pony," Itsuka reassured, "And with how I saw Bakugo act during the recent tournament, as well as what I heard about him but didn't see, I can see why you'd think that he's in love with you." Looking around at her friends, Itsuka said, "Well girls, I see that we all got the souvenirs that we came for, so let's go meet up with the boys. They're supposed to be at some local pizza place slash arcade called Gus' Games and Grub." The 1-B girls all paid for the stuff they all got, then they all took their leave from Royal Woods Mall.

…

The 1-B girls met up with the 1-B boys and together, all twenty of them proceeded to make their way to the hotel that they and their teacher Sekijiro are going to be staying at while they are on the field trip in the United States. "I swear," Monoma began as he and his classmates walked back to the hotel, sounding like he was about to go on another one of his conceited rants, "All of the locals here must be even more full of themselves than those 1-A bastards."

"I don't know, Monoma," Kosei began, "I mean, we're the foreigners here. What you may view as the locals being quote unquote 'full of themselves' may just be how the people here normally act. We ought to be careful not to jump to any wild conclusions."

Nodding in approval, Jurota remarked, "I couldn't have stated it better myself, Kosei." Turning to regard Monoma, Jurota said, "Kosei has a point, Monoma. We ought to learn more about the local culture here."

Scoffing in an indifferent tone, Monoma replied, "Whatever, Jurota. But mark my words, it'll just be a waste of-" The conceited blonde boy was cut off when he accidentally bumped into someone, cutting off his talk midsentence.

"(Oi!)" exclaimed the person that Monoma bumped into in English, angrily and in an annoyed tone, "(Watch where you're going!)" The person that bumped into Monoma was a fair-skinned girl that was in her late teens; she had blonde hair which was long enough so that she could bind it into twin pigtails that trailed down the back of her head. The girl wore a dark green somewhat baggy t-shirt, a pair of blue jeans, white sneakers, and, tied around her waist, a brown leather jacket that opened in the front.

Additionally, she wore a red Sherpa hat with tassels hanging from the ear flaps on her head, and a white cloth bandage over the bridge of her nose; she seemed to be giving off the air that she was wearing that bandage purely for aesthetic reasons. Over her back was a somewhat thin rectangle-shaped leather case that peeked out from over her right shoulder at one end, and from behind her left waist at the other.

Gesturing to the late teens girl, Monoma said to his classmates, "See? This is what I was talking about! The locals here are so full of themselves!"

Eyeing Monoma with a look that had a hint of piqued interest, the late teens girl said, "(I see that you speak the language that my brother Aggro learned from our late father. I don't suppose that either you or any of your fellows here speaks either English or Swedish, do you? I would like to be hearing your explanation for the conceited airs that you are putting on.)" The way that the girl spoke made the 1-B students think of large and mighty Viking warriors from a northern land of snow and cold. As such, some of them were wary of acting/speaking before thinking.

Similar to how the local girl was getting annoyed, Monoma likewise had a look of annoyance on his face, albeit his was mixed with a hint of smug conceitedness. "(I said,)" Monoma said as he began to speak in English to the local girl, "(That you are an example of how all of the locals that live in this town must be completely full of themselves! I mean, that would certainly go a long way to explain why you're behaving like an uncultured, brainless barbarian towards me and all of my classmates here!)"

Savage fury instantly flooded into the local girl's expression as she reached over her right shoulder, unzipped the case over her back a little, reached in, and pulled out a four-iron golf club, as if said golf club was a sword that was sheathed in a scabbard over her back. "(Do you wish for me to strike you that badly, you hysteric monkey?!)" the local girl snarled angrily, looking as if she was ready to attack at a moment's notice.

The 1-B students, upon seeing this local girl pull a blunt instrument out seemingly with the intent to attack someone with it, all went wide-eyed with alarm. Only Monoma did not react in such a manner. Instead, he merely scoffed, as if something he believed was just confirmed much to his conceited pleasure. "(See?)" Monoma said as he gestured to the local girl, "(This is exactly what I'm talking about! You and every-")

Monoma, before he could get one more word out, was struck in the back of his head by a chop from an oversized hand. After the conceited holler monkey fell back, Itsuka, who was the one that had disciplined Monoma just now, stepped forward as her hand returned to normal size. "(I am very sorry about his act just now,)" Itsuka said to the local girl in English, knowing just enough of the language to convey an apology; the 1-B class rep's grasp of English was about as solid as Pony's grasp of Japanese, if a comparison is needed. Bowing her head apologetically to the local girl, Itsuka continued, "(I will make sure he behaves himself.)"

The local girl eyed Itsuka with a contemplative look for a few seconds before she lowered her arm that held her four-iron, a clear sign that her hostility has dropped. "(…I see that not all of you are lacking in honor,)" the local girl said, her tone sounding like she was appeased by the sincere apology, albeit barely, "(I hope that this will not occur again.)"

"(Thank you for being so forgiving,)" Ibara remarked to the local girl, also knowing English and about as much as Itsuka, "(Being forgiving is a wise virtue to have. Just as God forgives us for the transgressions that we make, we must be willing to forgive those who transgress against us.)"

After she heard what Ibara said, the local girl turned right to face her. To the worry of Ibara and a few of the other 1-B students who were close enough to see, not only was the local girl once again wearing a snarling, enraged look of savagery, but that it was actually _worse_ than the one that she had been wearing when Monoma was pissing on her shoes. "(…You're a Christian, aren't you?)" the local girl said, sounding more accusatory than curious.

"Uh-oh," Yosetsu muttered to himself in Japanese, already having a feeling that he, as well as the rest of 1-B, was not going to like where this one was going.

"(Yes, I am indeed Christian,)" Ibara replied to the local girl in English, "(Is that a problem?)"

The local girl turned herself so that she was fully facing the devout Christian of class 1-B. Pointing at Ibara with her left index finger, the local girl said, "(You would force your ways and beliefs onto me? You would force me to abandon my devotion to the All-Father, abandon my warrior's honor in favor of your church's hymns?!)" Suddenly, and to the alarm of all of 1-B, they saw _golden lightning_ emanate out of the local girl's right hand, which held the golf club's handle, only for said electrical power to go on to cover the golf club entirely, engulfing it in a shroud of golden lightning. Her snarling expression showing that she now was well beyond the point of being reasoned with, the local girl yelled, "(YOU WOULD SHOVE YOUR RELIGION DOWN MY THROAT?!)"

"Oh shit!" Yosetsu exclaimed at the top of his lungs in Japanese, his eyes wide with alarm as he and the rest of his classmates saw such raw, untamed power exerted right in front of them, "Guys, we need to get the hell out of here pronto!"

Luckily for the rest of 1-B, the all agreed with their classmate with the welding quirk, especially when they saw the golden lightning that was enshrouding the local girl's golf club start to spread to cover the whole of her person. The twenty students in Sekijiro's homeroom class decided to take the time the girl was using to cover herself in her element to turn tail and run away as fast as possible. By the time that the local girl was beginning to shout angrily about how 'fleeing from battle was dishonorable' or whatever, all of 1-B had safely gotten away.

* * *

Later that day, sometime late in the afternoon, Hisashi had met up with four other men in a hotel room somewhere in Royal Woods. One was a bald African American man, another was a mixed Hispanic and Native American man with long black and somewhat wild hair that reached about an inch past his shoulders, a third was a Middle Eastern man with medium-long black hair in a respectable style plus the man also had a bit of a goatee going, and the final was a Caucasian man with wavy yellow-blonde hair that reached the base of his skull. The Caucasian man had a notably fuller body, but aside from that, all of the group had lean yet healthy builds; even Hisashi had a lean yet healthy body, leaving the Caucasian man as the odd duck out of the group. As a side note, all of the men in the group were around the same age.

"(So boss,)" the African American man said to the Caucasian man, "(When do we carry out our heist at the Tetherby mansion?)" Rubbing his hands together somewhat eagerly in anticipation, the African American man continued, "(Because if what you told the rest of us is true, then this will be our biggest heist yet!)"

The Caucasian man held up a hand in a gesture signaling for his fellow to calm down and relax a little. "(…We'll be moving in sometime later tonight,)" the Caucasian man began to explain as he lowered his hand back down, "(It will be the perfect time for us to…collect…what our good friend Lord Tetherby owes us.)" The way that the Caucasian man, who is clearly the leader of the group, put things made the rest of the group of professional thieves chuckle amongst themselves in amusement. Even Hisashi, who is truly a double-agent that was working on the inside to help his true boss back in Japan bring the thieves to justice, found some humor in the Caucasian man's words.

Getting the rest of the group to calm down by holding his hand up again, the Caucasian man said, "(Tonight is the homecoming celebration for Royal Woods' local high school, and given how this is a relatively small town, such an event will distract enough of the local populace to give the lot of us the cover we need to break into Lord Tetherby's estate and steal _this_.)" The Caucasian man then pulled out a printed sheet of paper that had a printed picture on it. The picture was of an elaborately jeweled necklace, and one that was very clearly worth a lot of money.

"(_This_, gentlemen,") the Caucasian man said, "(Is the Tetherby family heirloom amulet, made of the finest gold, masterfully cut smaller diamonds, and a large red ruby that on its own would set anyone up for life.") Pushing the printed picture forward on the table that he and the other men were all seated at, the Caucasian man said, "(This thing is worth roughly as much as the Hope Diamond on the black market, if you all want an idea how big this heist will truly be for us.)"

Clapping his hands together, the Middle Eastern man said, "(Well alright! This really will be our biggest heist yet! We may not even have to go on heists anymore after a payoff like this!)" He pumped his right fist into the air as he said, "(Let's hear it for our future lives on easy street!)"

All of the men in the group all began to get excited for their big heist that they were going to be pulling off in a few hours. Even Hisashi looked eager for the big payoff that will occur, although it was merely a very cleaver act that fooled the rest of the thieves. In truth, the Midoriya patriarch was very much nervous; he only had enough info on the Caucasian man and the mixed Hispanic and Native American man to be able to have them brought in by the proper authorities, but he needed to bring in _all_ of the thieves.

Hisashi hoped that he would be able to contact his local help here in Royal Woods sometime before the heist is successfully completed, otherwise not only will the thieves get away with their biggest heist yet, but most of the thieves will get away after all is said and done. Internally sighing to himself, Hisashi steeled his nerves in preparation for his act that he had to throw on later tonight so as to avoid blowing his carefully constructed cover.

* * *

Later that night, with it just having gotten dark enough to give the thieves cover, they proceeded to move towards their intended target. They drove in a dark-colored family van with tinted windows; due to the choice in using a _family_ van as opposed to a van that would more commonly be associated with a group of thieves on the move, the thieves were able to avoid drawing any unwarranted attention as they made their way to their latest heist.

As the van went on, driven by the Middle Eastern man with the Caucasian man riding shotgun, Hisashi was looking at the photo that he had previously shown to those girls from U.A. that were in the states on an international field trip. The Midoriya patriarch looked longingly at the photo of him with his wife and their son, yearning to return home. After his true job was done, Hisashi would have his wish, which is all the more reason why he wanted to return home with his true job being successfully completed; he feared that he would return to Inko and Izuku in shame.

The mixed-race (Hispanic and Native American) man, who sat next to Hisashi on his right, saw that the Asian man in the group was looking at a photo. Out of curiosity, the mixed-race man leaned slightly to see what was in the photo. "(…That a new photo of you with your wife and kid, man?)" the mixed-race man asked, getting Hisashi's attention while pointing to the photo in the Midoriya patriarch's hands.

Turning his head to regard the mixed-race fellow, Hisashi replied, "(Yeah. This was taken right after our last job but before we all started the job we're working on right now.)"

Looking at the photo a bit closely, the mixed-race man said after noticing something, "(…Your wife looks like she's gained some weight since the previous photo that you took with her and your kid.)"

With a bit of a self-amused smirk, Hisashi replied, "(Well, it doesn't exactly bother me. In fact, if I'm to be honest, I'm actually kind of liking how my wife's weight makes her look.)"

"(Oh?)" the African American man remarked with a hint of amusement in his tone, having heard the conversation thus far, "(So you _like_ having a fat wife?)"

Nodding once in the affirmative, Hisashi replied, "(Because she has a fat ass to go with it.)"

That got a few barks of laughter from the thieves, and the African American and the mixed-race men both said words along the lines of Hisashi having the right taste in women. The Midoriya patriarch wasn't even acting for the sake of his mission; he was sincerely fond of how Inko now has a fuller body (he didn't know about Inko's weight gain until _after_ he returned from the job that he was on before the one that he was on now), and wouldn't mind it if she were to gain a few more pounds. Then do a little private show for him in their bedroom.

Putting the photo of him with his family away, Hisashi said, "(Well, we can reminisce about our families back home later. Right now, we have a job to do.)"

"(And your timing in saying that is spot on,)" the Caucasian man said as the van they were all in slowly came to a stop, "(We just arrived at chez Tetherby.)" The thieves and Hisashi looked out of the tinted windows of the family van they were in as they looked over at the Tetherby estate, a large and grandiose mansion that was very clearly the home of a wealthy elite. Clapping his hands together, the Caucasian man said, "(Alright, gentlemen, we have a heist to carry out! Let's get going!)" The men quickly gathered up what little gear they were going to being in with them before they got out of the van and, with no one around to see, made their way to the home that they were going to rob blind.

* * *

Hisashi and the thieves made their way into the Tetherby estate via a side door in a garage. "(It seems that there's a lack of security here at the Tetherby estate,)" the African American man noted, his tone more of piqued curiosity rather than anything else, "(Still, we ought to be careful. There's no telling what may-)"

"(Who the hell are you guys?)" a much younger but still clearly adult voice called out to the group, startling all of them and making them look over. When they did, they spotted a young adult man that looked to be in his very early twenties; he had fair skin, orangish hair that stuck up like broom bristles, and there were yellow markings of some sort all over his face. The young adult man was, to the surprise of the group, very clearly in the middle of trying to steal a white limo that was in the garage.

"(…Who the hell are you?)" the Caucasian man replied, more curious than rattled that he and his group were apparently just caught by someone who seemed to also be here to steal something from the Tetherby estate.

"(I asked you first,)" the young adult man replied.

Not wanting to do a back and forth with who was clearly a fellow thief, the Caucasian man explained, "(My associates here and I are here to steal the Tetherby family heirloom amulet from Lord Tetherby's personal collection.)"

Gesturing to the white limo that he was trying to carjack, the young adult man explained, "(I'm here to steal the fat sack of crap's limo.)" Turning his head to look from left to right as if he was worried about a third party coming in to bust everyone in the garage, the young adult man turned his attention back to the thieves and said, "(I won't tell if you guys don't tell.)"

"(Deal,)" the Caucasian man replied as the thieves and Hisashi made their way into the estate, leaving the surprise limo thief to do his work without bother.

* * *

After a few minutes of searching, the thieves and Hisashi finally located a room in the estate that had a safe located inside. It was a moderately advance safe (under five years old, if you have to know), but still no match for the mixed-race man who, to Hisashi's surprise, had a quirk that allowed him to effortlessly undo and open any lock (that's all the quirk did, though). Within a few brief moments, the safe was opened, showing all of the marvelous wealth and other such treasures that were located within. Among all of the valuables that were found within the safe was the Tetherby family heirloom amulet.

As the men proceeded to scoop in the lot of the safe's wealth into duffle bags, with the amulet going into a special leather money bag that zipped closed, the Caucasian man said as he clapped his hands together, "(Well done, gentlemen! This is without a doubt our biggest heist yet!)"

"(Hey, can we hurry this up?)" the Middle Eastern man asked over at the door that led into the room that they were all in, clearly acting as a look out, "(The sooner we get out of here the better. I don't want to get caught mid-heist.)"

Nodding in understanding, the Caucasian man said, "(Very well. We got what all we came here for, so there really is no further point to-)" The Caucasian man was cut off when the African American man, in his haste to help clean up, slammed the safe's door back up so hard that it made a loud, resounding noise that prompted voices in the distance located within the estate to begin shouting, clearly sounding both like they were just waking up and that they were alarmed.

"(…And now we run,)" the Caucasian man said, a hint of dryness in his tone, as he, the other thieves and Hisashi all proceeded to scramble out of the Tetherby estate. The thieves and Hisashi made it about halfway to the garage, which was their point of exit, when they were spotted by a butler that served at the estate. When said butler tried to confront the group, Hisashi, in his effort to maintain his cover, used his quirk to breathe fire into the butler's face, making the butler flail back as he scrambled to wipe the flames from his face.

"(Whoa!)" the mixed-race man practically exclaimed in wonder and amazement to Hisashi as they and the rest of the group continued to run to the garage, "(You never mentioned that you have a quirk, man!)"

"(_You_ never mentioned that _you_ have a quirk,)" the Midoriya patriarch replied dryly when he and the thieves made it to the garage. The five of them quickly ran out a door on the one side wall of the garage, which let them leave the estate and run right across a large, stately lawn and over to the sidewalk outside of the estate. The thieves and Hisashi all piled into their getaway van before they sped off with all due haste.

* * *

The hasty escape from Lord Tetherby's estate was not _exactly_ the best in the group's collective history (this wasn't the first heist that Hisashi went on with the thieves group he infiltrated), but they were still able to get away nonetheless. And they had everything that was in the safe that they located, including the Tetherby family heirloom amulet. "(Well despite the fact that we got what we came for, gentlemen,)" the Caucasian man began, "(I believe that it would be wise for the lot of us to lie low for a bit.)"

Nodding in agreement, the mixed-race man remarked, "(Well that goes without saying, boss. We always have to lie low for a bit whenever we're caught breaking-)"

*WHUUM*

The mixed-race man was cut off when he, as well as everyone else in the van, cried out in alarm when the van was hit by a wave of what felt like earth, probably large amounts of dirt, with a few small rocks inside of said dirt. Hisashi and the thieves felt as if their getaway vehicle was just slammed in the side by an avalanche of dirt, rock, and similar earthen material. What's more is that not only did that avalanche came out of seemingly nowhere (they were driving on a street going through a residential area that was nowhere near the mountains), but that it hit the van with enough force to push it back until the other side slammed into a tree in someone's front yard.

After the van finally came to a stop, the men inside all groaned in stiffened pain as they heard a teenage girl's voice shout from outside, "(COME OUT OF THE VAN RIGHT NOW, YOU THIEVES! I WILL NOT WARN YOU AGAIN!)" Still shaken by the wild ride that they were just thrown through, Hisashi and the thieves climbed out of the now totaled van and, once they were all standing outside, they saw who it was that was confronting them.

It was indeed a teenage girl, one who looked to be fifteen years of age. She had a sort of grayish pale skin, and pitch-black hair whose bangs covered her left eye, allowing her right eye, which was a piercing shade of burgundy, to see unhindered; the rest of the girl's hair was long enough so that it trailed halfway down her back in a single braided ponytail. She wore a black sleeveless girl's blouse, a black skirt that reached her knees, black and white striped arm warmers that reached halfway up her upper arms, black and white striped stockings, and black shoes. The girl was also holding onto a wooden staff which, judging by its design and detailing, must have been of Native American make.

Even though the teenage girl was standing with two police officers, thus Hisashi and the thieves still outnumbered them, the men were still very much worried about the teen girl, especially since she was currently enshrouded in a cloak of a powdery-looking dirt that was radiating a bright, shining, brilliant golden aura. The teenage girl raised her left hand (her staff was in her right), causing the massive wave of dirt that was thrown all around earlier to rise as it was enshrouded by that same golden aura.

All of the excess dirt that was thrown around was pooling together in a single spot at the teenage girl's command, and as that was going on, the girl herself pointed her staff at Hisashi and the thieves. "(I thought that tonight would be a night off for me,)" the teen girl began, "(I would get to relax at home, looking after my younger siblings, while Allison, Aggro and their group all went to homecoming at Royal Woods High. But no. No, I was brought in to help capture and subdue a group of thieves reported to have broken into the Tetherby estate, raided one the safes inside, then make a getaway.)"

When the girl was finished with the first part of her tangent, the dirt that she was controlling had finished coming together and began to form into a large cage; it was box-shaped, and the solid dirt bars made it resemble the kind of cages that criminals in old timey cartoons would be thrown into when they were at last captured by the good guys in those early Saturday morning cartoon escapades of old. Giving Hisashi and the thieves a cold glare, the teen girl said, "(Now then. Will you men all surrender peacefully, or do the police and I have to take you all in _by force_?)"

"(WHAT THE HELL KIND OF A QUIRK DOES THIS GIRL HAVE?!)" the mixed-race man exclaimed in alarm and fear as he and the rest of the group began to freak out upon seeing the teen girl's earth manipulation quirk in action. Knowing full well that they were all in no position to flee, Hisashi and the thieves decided to fight back.

The teen girl, as bullets from guns two of the thieves were firing at her were blocked perfectly by her gold-enshrouded earth cloak, manipulated some leftover earth from her previous assault on the getaway van to rise up and slam into all of them except for Hisashi and the mixed race thief, as they were standing behind the other three as all three of them ran to find some cover, even more so since the two police officers, seeing some of the thieves pull guns out, proceeded to pull their own firearms out. "(This is bad, guys!)" the mixed heritage man shouted as he and the others ran to hide behind the ruined remains of their getaway van, "(We've been caught with our pants down by two police officers and a girl with a killer earth manip-URRK!)"

The mixed heritage man was cut off when he got hit by one of the shots fired by the first police officer, who was a Hispanic woman. With a pained grunt, the mixed heritage man fell back and laid on the ground on his back in someone's front yard. He yelled all sorts of swears as he clutched his left shoulder, in which the bullet that hit him was lodged.

"(Oh shit!)" Hisashi exclaimed as he and the others saw their fellow get hit by the policewoman and fall over. The shoulder wound was going to need some medical attention as soon as possible because the mixed heritage man could bleed out, but the shot on its own wasn't an instant death sentence. With a worried look on his face, the Midoriya patriarch realized that he had no choice in this situation.

Doing something he thought that he would never do (it was also something that he never wanted to do), Hisashi reached to the holster on his right hip that held a handgun that he was provided with by the thieves group that he had infiltrated. Due to his strong aversion to using firearms (stemming partly from some of the stigma that the use of such weapons faces in Japan), Hisashi had never so much as taken the gun out of the holster, only carrying it because the thieves in the group he infiltrated would otherwise find him odd, thus it would have run the risk of blowing his carefully constructed cover.

But now, given that he and the group of thieves had their backs to the wall because of two local police officers and a local quirked girl, and the fact that said opposition was too far out of range for his fire breath quirk to hit them plus the mixed heritage man was just incapacitated because he took a shot to his shoulder, Hisashi was finding himself glad to actually have a gun on hand. He was also a bit disgusted to be glad to have a gun, but that's not here and now.

Hisashi pulled out his gun, a Sig Sauer 9MM, took aim at the teen girl in the gold aura-enshrouded earth cloak, and fired three shots at her. The cloak effortlessly blocked all three of Hisashi's shots, just as it had done when other shots were taken at the teen girl. "_Damn it, this is really bad_," Hisashi thought worriedly, "_This thieves group that I'm trying to collect info on just HAD to be caught up in a shootout with local law enforcement. I swear, the boss lady is going to be really mad that things had gone as far south here as they_-"

The Midoriya patriarch's thoughts were interrupted when the second police officer, a man who like Hisashi was also Asian (the Asian police officer was Korean, though), fired three shots at him, hitting him in the gut, right shoulder and chest. "HURK!" Hisashi grunted out in pain as he fell back due to being shot in so many places on his person, laying on the ground in that front yard same as the mixed heritage man. However, whereas the mixed heritage man's odds looked fairly good as he was only hit in the shoulder, the same can't be said for Hisashi, sadly enough.

As he laid there on the ground, bleeding onto the front lawn of some random residence in Michigan, Hisashi could feel himself slip into the void. "…_So_…" Hisashi thought somberly as he could feel his pull on life weaken, "…_This is it_, _huh_? _It looks like I won_'_t be returning from a successful job after all_. _Sorry about this Inko_, _Izuku_…" With his last thoughts being of his hero-in-training of a son and his generously sized wife whose rear he wished he could have squeezed one last time, Hisashi slipped into the void.

* * *

The following morning over at Royal Woods Hotel, the class 1-B students were all sitting around in the hotel rooms that they were using while on their field trip. Ibara looked particularly worried, as she had been informed by 1-B's teacher Sekijiro that because of her, there was a very good chance that U.A. may have to deal with trying to diffuse an _international incident_. The only saving graces that the devout Christian had was that in her defense she had no idea that her showing her faith would have elicited such a reaction from the local girl, and that the local girl, with all due respect, did overreact rather badly. At least the twenty students in 1-B all got away without getting hurt.

"That girl's lightning quirk looked like it could have powered through all of my vines as if it was nothing," Ibara said in a mildly rattled tone as she sat in the hotel room where all of the 1-B girls were staying, "That golden aura of her lightning was truly terrifying to behold."

"I was scared," Kinoko squeaked, trembling a bit as she thought back to the incident in question, "I had no idea that there were such powerful quirks outside of Japan." Setsuna made a comment on how she wasn't even aware that there were any sort of quirks outside of Japan at all, but that was quickly shut down by most of the other girls, with Yui pointing out to Setsuna how quirks were a world-wide phenomena

The 1-B girls all heard a pair of hands clap together, prompting all of them to turn to face Itsuka, who was the one that made the clapping sound. Sighing in a resigned tone, Itsuka said, "Girls, I think that the point here is that there are simply some things out there that we just cannot wrap our heads around, things that go well beyond the pale of what we can expect." The other girls all nodded in agreement with their class rep before some of them flumped over onto the beds in the hotel room that they were all sitting in.

…

Later that morning during an early lunch, as the 1-B girls ate, Pony was reading something in a newspaper that she had gotten ahold of. "Hey girls," the half-American girl began, "It says here that there was a group consisting of five thieves that broke into a wealthy guy's estate last night at the same time the local High School was having some sort of homecoming event." Lowering the newspaper, Pony continued, "It mentions that a local girl, who has a rather powerful earth manipulation quirk, helped some local police officers capture two of the thieves alive, but the other three were killed by the police officers in a shoot-out." Looking back to her newspaper, Pony continued, "The police are doing an investigation into the incident to determine if the two officers in question acted with due cause or not. The article also noted that the quirked teen girl was praised for her assistance and the fact that she didn't kill any of thieves."

"Figures the locals here also have quirks, just like everyone we know over at U.A.," Reiko said, "And damn powerful ones, at that." Leaning back in her seat, Itsuka said, "Geez, imagine what the recent tournament against Vulcan High would have been like if one of the students that was in the tournament had a crazy powerful quirk like what that Viking-like girl had, or that girl who helped the police in stopping the thief group from that newspaper article last night."

The other 1-B girls all commented in agreement with Itsuka; Reiko even let out a bit of a laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. Sure, the 1-B girls, the boys in their class, and everyone else that they all knew all back at home were used to the ridiculous on the regular basis. But that did nothing to prepare class 1-B for what they would be encountering once they entered the United States on their little field trip, did nothing to prepare any of them for how truly big the world at large is out there.

As she finished off a can of soda, Reiko would not help but wonder what other kinds of insanity are out there in the world.

END, CHAPTER NINE

Author's notes;

And with that, the 'Crossover Field Trip arc' has officially begun. For those of you out there who are not entirely fond of what happened to Hisashi here, I'm sorry, but it was necessary to build up lore and other background happenings that will come up later down the line in this story. Anyway, there's a lot more out there in the world than what the students of U.A. are used to, and they'll be in for quite the rude awakening later on down the line.

But don't worry, the experience that they will get out of all of this will help them, as I have previously said. Anyway, the next chapter will see what's happening back in Japan while class 1-B is living it up in the United States, at least as far as their circumstances will allow. We're going to be checking in on what class 1-A is up to in the meantime. Everyone's favorite Earphone Jack girl is going to be front and center.

Oh, before I forget, when there were parentheses in dialogue in this chapter, that signified when someone was speaking in a language other than Japanese, the language spoken primarily in the MHA/BNHA setting. It was my first time writing a chapter for anything when someone was not talking in the same language as everyone else, but I wrote all of the dialogue in English so that you guys, the readers, knew what was being said regardless of what language the speaker on the lines was using in-universe. There will be future chapters where there are multiple people in the same scene but not all of them speak the same language as one another.

(EDIT 11-18-2019: I changed things in this chapter in response to some issues that I saw in the comments for the original version of this chapter. The changes that I made include class 1-B getting away from the lightning quirk girl without getting hurt (I also made a note on how said lightning quirk girl overreacted), and the earth manipulation quirk girl not killing anyone. I hope that these changes help to fix the chapter for some.)


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter ten: Tangled electrical cords

One evening over at U.A. on a day where there were no classes, the class 1-A girls were hanging out in the common area of the 1-A dorm building, which had recently finished being fumigated thus allowing the students to move back in. Uraraka, Yaoyorozu, Mina, Tsuyu and Hagakure were all chatting like the good friends that they were; only Kyoka was absent from what would have otherwise been a gathering of all of the 1-A girls (something that a certain purple ball-haired boy in their class would have killed for).

"I'm kind of jealous that class 1-B gets to go on an international field trip while we're stuck here," Yaoyorozu remarked casually, with a hint of envy in her tone. Shifting around in her seat at the table a bit, the rich girl continued, "But then again, they took that creepy mushroom girl that's in their class with them."

"Thank goodness for that!" Hagakure cheered in agreement, "I swear, she just gives me the shivers sometimes just by being around!"

Trying to get her fellow girls to calm down, Uraraka said, "Aww, come on, you two. Sure, Kinoko seems a bit on the weird side, but she isn't necessarily creepy." A hint of dryness entered the gravity girl's expression as she dryly remarked, "There's a certain someone else that I would give the title of 'creepy' to."

Mina, who was downing the last of some soda that was in a can she was drinking from, said after crushing the can against her forehead, "I'm going to assume that you're talking about-" The pink girl was cut off midsentence when a side door in the kitchen area that the girls were in was thrown open, and in walked Kyoka, a miserable look on her face which suggested that the rock lover might start crying at any moment.

The look of misery on their friend's face did not go by unnoticed from the rest of the 1-A girls, who all immediately got up and ran over to Kyoka's side. "Kyoka, what's wrong?" Tsuyu asked in her usual dry tone, although a good bit of concern was clearly shining through.

Kyoka looked up from staring at the ground until her eyes were level with the other girls. Some of their hearts broke when they saw the sad, miserable look in Kyoka's eyes, which were already watering. "I…" Kyoka said in a broken voice, one whose sound suggested that the rock lover had already cried at least once, "…I messed up. I messed up bad, girls."

* * *

After they cleaned Kyoka up a bit and sat her down with them back at the table they were sitting at, the other 1-A girls all turned their attention to the last member of their group to show up. "Just so you know, we're all here for you," Hagakure began to explain in a calm, reassuring tone, "No need to be hesitant."

"She's right, Kyoka," Tsuyu remarked in a likewise tone, "You can tell us what happened kero."

Sighing in a mildly wavering tone, Kyoka said, "Kaminari was…he was working hard on something. He was not being stupid or anything, and he had no perverted intentions or anything along those lines." Kyoka let out another sigh before she said, "And I…I ruined it. I ruined it by burning a bridge beyond the point of ever hoping to rebuild the damn thing."

The other 1-A girls all exchanged worried, mildly confused looks. The only girl who was not involved in the exchanging of looks was Mina, who had a cool yet indifferent look on her face as she occasionally shot an accusatory look at Kyoka. Not that any of the other girls saw any of the looks that the pink girl was throwing.

None of the girls even said anything for a few brief moments before one of them, Yaoyorozu, had the courage to speak up. "What…" the rich girl began in a tentative tone, "…What exactly was it that you did, Kyoka?"

Sighing once again in a resigned, lame, and remorseful tone, the rock lover said, "Nothing that I'm proud of, that's for sure…"

(FLASHBACK)

Earlier that day, Kyoka was surprised when Kaminari asked her to meet him down in the kitchen area of the dorms. To Kyoka's surprise, she saw that Kaminari had made a surprisingly elaborate breakfast for the two of them. From the looks of it, it seemed that Kaminari had skills in preparing meals that were comparable to the high end chefs that worked for Yaoyorozu's folks. But that's beside the point.

The point here is that Kaminari made one hell of a spread with Kyoka in mind. Any boy who had such skills in the kitchen would automatically get a girl's attention, and the rock lover found that Kaminari's kitchen escapades were only the beginning of what the electric quirk boy had in mind for the day. After they had that epic level breakfast, Kaminari was able to convince Kyoka to accompany him. At first, Kyoka was a bit hesitant, given that the electric quirk boy had a bit of a reputation for favoring plans with varying levels of lewdness, his and Mineta's past scheme to get Kyoka and the other girls into cheerleading outfits being one such example.

But to the rock lover's surprise, Kaminari had made no such movements. He merely wanted her to be with him for the day, with the two of them doing various things that would commonly be done by a boy and a girl that were on a date; they saw a movie, got lunch somewhere, and at one point Kaminari even got Kyoka a nice little gift, that being a DVD for a movie that she had been dying to see. Kyoka even found herself worrying that she was asking for a bit much, given the price tag on the DVD, but Kaminari saw the price as no big deal.

Kyoka was feeling very happy with the time she had with Kaminari, and at the same time she felt a lingering sense of guilt for having suspected the electric quirk boy for having any sort of lewd ulterior motives. Today was one of the best days that the rock lover could recall having up to this point, and it was all thanks to Kaminari. Kyoka couldn't believe herself for having suspected that Kaminari might have had Mineta-style thoughts about her, especially considering the fact that he never made moves towards her that would have suggested such intentions.

…Then Kyoka and Kaminari return to the dorms from their date…

"Ah, there you are, Kaminari," Sero said as he and Kirishima greeted their friend and fellow 'Baku-squad' member when he returned to the dorms with Kyoka. To the piqued interest of the returning teens, the boys were both wearing grins that could be described as shit-eating.

Seeing that his friends were clearly looking for him, Kaminari replied, "What's up, guys?"

"Kaminari, bro, dude," Kirishima began, "Check this out. You know that Pony girl that's in class 1-B with my bud Tetsutetsu? Well, shortly before you got here just now, Baku-bro told me and Sero here that he's got a serious thing for Pony! And what's more is that he wants the three of us to help him figure out a game plan to get Pony to like him back!"

Kyoka was a bit surprised to hear that Bakugo, who is known for having an infamously short temper and is prone to violence, had fallen in love with a girl as cute and bashful as Pony. But even so, she couldn't help but find Kaminari talking with Kirishima and Sero about how they would help their explosive friend get with the half-American girl to be a rather amusing sight. Additionally, the rock lover could not help but like how Kaminari was eagerly helping to figure out how to help a boy get with a girl that said boy had fallen for, as it was showing a side of Kaminari that Kyoka never knew that he had; this was yet another point that made her feel guilty for having suspected the electric quirk boy for having lewd ulterior motives earlier.

As the three boys talked while Kyoka stood by and watched, Mineta came waking over, having been summoned by the commotion. "Hey guys," Mineta greeted, "What's going on?"

Turing to face the newly arrived person on the scene, Sero said, "Oh, sup, Mineta? Yeah, the boys and I are just talking about how we're going to figure out how to get Bakugo hooked up with Pony from 1-B."

The infamous pervert nodded once in understanding, his expression showing that he could appreciate what he had just heard. "Ah yes," Mineta began, "Pony's one of the hottest girls in our year, not to mention that rocking body she's got. Plus those hooves and horns she's got and her mixed heritage gives her something on an exotic flare." Nodding once again, Mineta said, "I can appreciate Bakugo's taste in girls."

"Uhh, Mineta," Sero began, "I'm pretty sure that Bakugo doesn't have the exact same intentions when it comes to girls that you do."

Mineta merely chuckled in mild amusement in response. "Oh Sero," the infamous pervert began, "You're amusingly naïve when it comes to matters like this. As a boy, you'll soon learn that there is only ever one thing that we ever really care about when we're going after a girl." Mineta then jerked a thumb at Kaminari, who Kyoka was still standing next to. "Take our pal Kaminari here, for example," Mineta began.

"I beg your pardon?" Kaminari replied, arching an eyebrow out of confusion, as well as a mild dash of surprise.

"From the looks of how he's standing here with Kyoka, it's pretty clear that the two of them have just gotten back from a date," Mineta said to Sero and Kirishima, "And that he made any and every effort that he could think of to make it the best time out that Kyoka ever had." Crossing his arms over his chest, Mineta continued as he spoke to Sero and Kirishima, "It's clear that our fellow man here put in all of that effort because he wants her to offer up. I mean, why else would Kaminari, or any guy for that matter, ever put so much effort into a girl?"

"Excuse me?!" Kaminari exclaimed, "Mineta, dude, that is not-"

*SLAP*

All talking was brought to a screeching halt when Kyoka slapped Kaminari across his face so hard that it left a very visible hand-shaped mark on the side of his face that was slapped. The volume of the slap also caught the attention of the other Baku-squad boys and Mineta, all three of which winced in sympathy, as well as cringing a bit, when they heard the slap, saw Kyoka's hand strike the face of the electric quirk boy.

When he was slapped across his face, Kaminari also stumbled back a bit, mostly out of surprise. But he never actually fell over, and was eventually able to regain his footing. When he did, Kaminari stood there as he, as well as Sero, Kirishima and Mineta all looked on at Kyoka, who wore a look of angry, frustrated embarrassment on her face. "…So I was right," the rock lover said in a bitter tone, "You really were aiming to get into my pants this whole time."

"Kyoka, no," Kaminari began, looking worried and a bit desperate, "What Mineta said had-"

"SHUT UP!" Kyoka screeched loudly, cutting Kaminari off and making him and the other boys that were there all wince. Turning around, Kyoka stormed off as she said, "Leave me alone, Kaminari! Also, go fuck yourself!" Before any of the boys could find any words, Kyoka left.

(FLASHBACK OVER)

"…Wow," Yaoyorozu began, her tone sounding shocked but also a bit subdued, "I knew that Kaminari was kind of a pervert, given that he has similar interests as Mineta, but I always had it that Kaminari wasn't as bad about it as Mineta." A look of mild resignation entering her face, the rich girl added, "Until now."

"Shut up, Yaoyorozu," Kyoka scolded briskly, drawing a bit of surprise out of the class 1-A vice rep, "That was only the _first_ _half _of the story."

Uraraka, Hagakure and Tsuyu all looked around at the rest of the group with mildly unsure looks. Mina, who was the only girl of the group that was really calm, breathed in through her nose before breathing back out through her nose; given how said nose-breathing sounded, the pink-skinned girl sounded as if she was just a mite upset on someone else's behalf. "…Yes, Yaoyorozu," Mina began, her tone sounding a bit strained not that any of the other girls were able to notice it, "We only have one half of the story." Turning to face Kyoka, Mina continued in the same mildly strained tone, "Kyoka, you may proceed."

Nodding once in thanks, the rock lover said, "Thank you, Mina." To the group as a whole, Kyoka began, "As I was saying…"

(FLASHBACK)

Kyoka was walking through one of the halls of U.A., clearly giving off a frustrated air. To the surprise of many, Kyoka was accompanied by Mei Hatsume, who was wearing her workshop gear outfit. Stretching her arms up into the air, Mei said to Kyoka, "So that yellow-haired boy in your class was aiming to get lucky with you the whole time?"

"And I almost fell for it like an idiot," Kyoka huffed in an annoyed tone, "I still can't believe that I was so stupid to think that he didn't have any interest in trying to go that far!"

Placing a hand on Kyoka's shoulder, Mei replied, "Kyoka, girl, you know that I got your back. If you're ever in the mood to castrate that idiot, just give me a holler and I'll invent a handy little baby for you that you can use to do the deed."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Kyoka said, "Normally I would be against going that far, but given the embarrassment that I just went through, I might just have to take you up on-" Kyoka was cut off midsentence when she and Mei heard a majority of the 1-A boys talking amongst themselves a ways away. Curious, the two girls went to investigate, and halfway to their goal they heard Mineta cry out in extreme pain, which further spurred Kyoka and Mei.

When the two girls got close enough to clearly hear what was going on, they hid around a corner to avoid being seen by the group of boys. But Kyoka and Mei were still able to peek around that corner and see what was going on. As such, they saw that Kyoka's classmates Tenya, Ojiro, Kirishima, Sero, Tokoyami, Todoroki, Bakugo and Izuku were all standing around watching as Kaminari stood over Mineta, who was kneeled over on his knees and the right side of his face, both of his hands covering his crown jewels as if they were just dealt a critical hit.

Turning to face Kaminari, Bakugo said with a hint of surprise in his tone, "Dude, why did you just kick Grape Head in the balls? I mean, don't get me wrong, I don't think that he doesn't have it coming. In fact, I always think that Grape Head deserves to be kicked in the balls on a regular basis." Arching an eyebrow, Bakugo continued, "But why did _you_, of all people, do it?"

"It's his fault, damn it!" Kaminari snapped, facing the downed Mineta more than anyone else even though he was basically talking to all of the boys that were present. The electric quirk boy's back was to the hidden Kyoka and Mei, so neither of them could see that tears were slowly falling from Kaminari's eyes. "I have been working my ass of since we all started here at U.A.," Kaminari said, "That's frigg'in _months_' worth of time, trying to work myself up to try and get Kyoka to agree to hang with me for the day! We actually did that earlier, and we had a blast, and I was hoping that Kyoka would be okay with making it a regular thing between the two of us, which is what I wanted since I want her to go out with me!" Gesturing rather harshly at Mineta, Kaminari said, "But then this assfuck came in and fucked everything up!"

Stepping forward with a mildly confused look on his face, Tenya asked, "Excuse the intrusion, Kaminari, but it sounds as if your end goal here was to make our fellow classmate Kyoka your girlfriend. Would this be accurate to say, yes or no?" After a few tense seconds of silence, the electric quirk boy nodded slowly in the affirmative, giving only two or so nods. "Ah," Tenya replied, a hint of sympathy in his tone as he was able to tell that Kaminari was in anguish, "And how, pray tell, did our classmate Mineta ruin things for you?"

Turning to face the 1-A class rep, Kaminari said in a bitter tone, "By being himself."

"Yeah, I'm not going to lie," Ojiro said as he stepped forward, "Mineta did something similar when he caught me out on a date with Hagakure a while back. Luckily for me, I was able to salvage things and keep her from getting upset." Turning to regard Kaminari, Ojiro said with a sympathetic look on his face, "But I guess that you weren't as lucky, huh?"

Kaminari turned his attention to the tailed boy, a look of upset sadness on his face. "…Seeing as how she told me to not only leave her alone but to go fuck myself," the electric quirk boy said as his voice started to crack a bit, a sign that he might start crying, "I'd have to say yes."

The other 1-A boys that were present had varying looks. Those that were regarding their upset classmate were sympathetic, and surprisingly Tokoyami walked up to Kaminari and gave him a reassuring hug, which was joined by Dark Shadow. As for the boys that looked at the downed Mineta, the looks that they were shooting him made it clear that they held no sympathy for the infamous pervert; Bakugo even walked up to Mineta and kicked him over. Rather hard.

From where she hid with Kyoka as they spied on the boys, Mei said, "Wow, they're really letting Mineta have it." Turning to face the rock lover, Mei said, "What do you-" The inventor stopped midsentence when she saw the look on Kyoka's face. It was a look of shock, of surprise. Kyoka also clearly looked horrified with something. "…Girl?" Mei said, a hint of worry and concern in her tone, "You okay?"

"I…" Kyoka stammered, tears threatening to run down the sides of her face, "…I…I messed up." Before Mei could stop her, Kyoka turned around and took off running, too upset with what she had just gleamed to just stay around that area.

(FLASHBACK OVER)

"…So yeah," Kyoka said to the other 1-A girls as she finished her story, "As it turned out, Kaminari never actually had any perverted thoughts. He just wanted to have a relationship with me. But I let that little purple pervert get into my head and convince me that all Kaminari wanted was to screw me." Sighing in a resigned tone, Kyoka said, "Like I said, girls. I messed-"

*SLAP*

The other girls were all shocked when, out of the blue, Mina stood up and slapped Kyoka hard across her face, nearly knocking the rock lover out of her seat. When Kyoka recovered, she, as well as the rest of the girls, all saw that their pink friend had an absolutely steamed look on her otherwise always-happy face. Mina's hand that she used to slap Kyoka was still raised, but she lowered it down so that it rested on the table, next to her other hand.

"…You're _damn fucking straight_ you messed up, Kyoka," Mina scolded, her angry, mildly growling tone surprising the others, especially Kyoka who suddenly found a pink index finger pointing right into her face accusingly. "Kaminari treated you like a princess," Mina went on, "He gave you his fucking heart. But then you go and kick him in the shins until he lost balance and fell of the bridge!" Although they wouldn't exactly agree with Mina's choice of metaphor in this situation, Uraraka, Tsuyu, Yaoyorozu and Hagakure all agreed that Mina had gotten the point she's trying to make across quite well.

The pink girl raised her hands up a bit before slamming both palms onto the surface of the table, starting all of the others in the process. "The absolute fuck is wrong with you, Kyoka?!" Mina snarled, "Do you know how much any of us girls here would fucking _kill_ to have a guy like that?! And this is Kaminari we're talking about here! All of the stuff he did for you on that date you guys went on is bound to set him back a bit! Sure, Kaminari's not exactly hurting for cash, but he's no Todoroki, that's for sure!"

The group was all silent for a few tense moments. The silence wasn't broken until Yaoyorozu found the courage to speak up. "…Umm, Mina," the rich girl began, a hint of tentativeness in her tone, "I don't think that you're exactly giving things here a proper-"

*sniffle*

Yaoyorozu stopped midsentence when she, as well as the other girls, all turned to face where Kyoka was sitting, their collective attention caught by the sounds of choked sobs. The rock lover had her head hung, so no one could see her face. But her shoulders shook a bit as she quietly sobbed, and Uraraka was the first (but not the last) to see tears falling down from Kyoka before splatting against her lap.

"…S-She's right, Yaoyorozu…" Kyoka sobbed quietly, "…Mina's got a point. I screwed things up really badly here."

"So what do we do now?" Hagakure asked, a hint of trepidation in her tone, "Is there a way that we can try to fix things here, even if it's only so Kyoka can apologize?"

Crossing her arms over her chest, Mina let out a frustrated 'humph' before saying, "Luckily for you girls, I just so happen to be the expert in relationship advice. It was me who told Izuku about that cozy little café that he went to on his first date with Mrs. Bakugo." When a bit of a smile appeared on her lips, the pink girl said, "He told me that his first date went perfect thanks to my recommendation of that café."

"I still find it hard to believe that Izuku is dating Bakugo's mom now," Uraraka remarked as she crossed her arms over her chest. Not that any of the other girls were able to pick up on it (the ongoing situation of Kyoka's screw-up when it comes to her blowing up at Kaminari still had a lot of attention), but the gravity girl was giving off a slight air of jealousy.

"I think that we're getting off subject here, girls," Hagakure said, "Kyoka royally scuttled things between her and Kaminari." Tapping a fist into the palm of her hand (not that anyone could really see it), the invisible girl continued, "It's up to us to try and get things between Kyoka and Kaminari back to the point where they can at least be friends."

Yaoyorozu, with a curious look on her face, asked, "We aren't aiming to try and get Kyoka together with Kaminari?"

"Ha!" Mina laughed, her tone clearly sarcastic, "After what Kyoka did to the poor guy? We'd be lucky if he's willing to hear Kyoka out and accept an apology from her." Gently shaking her head, the pink girl continued, "As sad as it is, Kyoka screwed things up way too badly for there to be any reasonable hope of her and Kaminari actually getting together." Clapping her hands together, Mina said, "Alright, girls, get together." As the other 1-A girls all huddled up to their pink classmate, she said, "Here's what we're going to do…"

* * *

The following day during class, Aizawa had to leave the class for a bit, thus allowing the twenty students of 1-A to convers amongst themselves. "Oh, Izuku," Sato said as he walked over to the green-eyed boy and handed him an index card that had some writing on it, "Here's that recipe for lemon cake that I told you about. Make this for your girlfriend, and she's guaranteed to love it!"

"Oh, thank you, Sato," Izuku replied as he gratefully accepted the cake recipe from class 1-A's confectionery master. Giving Sato a curious look, Izuku asked, "But are you sure that Mitsuki will like lemon-flavored cake?"

Jerking a thumb over in Bakugo's direction, Sato explained, "Bakugo told me that his mom's favorite flavor of cake is lemon. It's part of where he gets his own preference for lemon-flavored cake from. At least that's what he told me."

Leaning to his side a bit so that he could see Baukgo, Izuku said, "Thanks for helping out with this, Kacchan!" Bakugo didn't say anything, although he did, without even looking, flipped Izuku the bird, knowing where in the classroom the green-haired cinnamon roll sat so he didn't have to look to aim the bird.

…

Since it was essentially a free period at the moment, the 1-A students were milling about the classroom, hanging out with each other as they wished. As such, the 1-A girls were all huddled together, conversing amongst themselves. "…So we're agreed," Mina said to the others as she held up a small, folded note, "We get this note Kyoka wrote to Kaminari in the hopes that he'll read it and be able to talk to her about what happened, thus giving them a shot to at least be willing to be friends."

"But here's the thing," Hagakure began, "How are we going to get it to Kaminari without arousing any suspicion from the boys?"

At that prompting, the pink girl laughed a bit. "Luckily for us," Mina began to explain, "Not only am I part of _this_ crew, but I'm also part of the same crew as Kaminari, Bakugo, Kirishima and Sero." Shooting Kyoka a quick severe look before settling back down, Mina said, "That's part of why I was so pissed at you for the stunt you pulled after all that Kaminari did for you." To the girls as a whole, Mina continued, "All I have to do is slip the note into a place that Kaminari is bound to find it in, and before you know it, he'll be willing to hear Kyoka out."

"That sounds as good of a plan as any," Tsuyu remarked, tipping a finger against her mouth in her usual style as she spoke, "I say go for it kero."

Mina nodded in confirmation before she walked over to where Kaminari was at in the classroom. The electric quirk boy was currently talking to Bakugo, Sero and Kirishima about something, which Mina did not know until she was close enough to hear Bakugo say, "…Gets back from the field trip her class took to the United States. What do you guys-" The explosive teen stopped short when he saw Mina had just shown up. "Oh, hey Pinky," Bakugo greeted casually, "I was beginning to wonder when you'd show up, especially since I'm discussing with the guys here on how I can get Pony to want to go out with me."

"Bakugo, trust me, I'm going to be all over helping to hook you up with your dream girl," Mina said as she was able to discreetly slip the note Kyoka wrote into a book on Kaminari's desk. "In fact, you could not have asked for anyone better than me to help you out," Mina continued, "You know I'm the master when it comes to making things go smoothly for relationships."

Rolling his eyes a bit, Bakugo replied, "Yeah, Pinky, I know. You told Deku about that café that he took my mom to." Arching an eyebrow in a manner that conveyed a bit of curiosity, the explosive teen asked, "By the way, you don't suppose that Pony might like going to that café, do you? Anything would help."

Nodding a bit in confirmation, Mina said, "I have no doubt that she'd love the gesture, Bakugo. It also helps that the café sells a variety of snacks to go with the coffee that you get. The last time that I went there, I had a slice of this amazing apple pie, and I bet that Pony will love it since she likes apples so much. In fact, Tokoyami also gave that pie his approval since he went to try it after I told him about it."

"Huh," Bakugo said, "Apple pie, you say?" After a few seconds of consideration, Bakugo asked, "Does the café also have some sort of lemon-flavored pie as well? Or maybe pumpkin pie?"

Mina, after hearing what Bakugo asked, was a bit surprised. "…Actually, yeah," Mina said, "The café has both of those. Izuku told me that he had a slice of pumpkin pie with his coffee when he went there on his date with your mom, who had a lemon meringue pie slice with her coffee."

With an amused smirk on his face, Bakugo said, "Well alright, Pinky. I'll just need the address of that café from you, then I'll try asking Pony out on a date with me when she and her class gets back from their field trip to the United States." A look of mild curiosity entered the explosive teen's expression before he asked, "Where is 1-B going to in the United States, by the way?"

Shrugging indifferently, Sero said, "You tell me and we'll both know, dude. I don't think anyone here got it from the guys in 1-B on where they were going." Crossing his arms over his chest, the tape-dispensing boy remarked, "We can always ask them when they get back, though." Bakugo, as well as the others in the 'Baku-squad', all nodded in agreement.

* * *

When Aizawa returned to the classroom, some of the 1-A students noted that he had a rattled and mildly worried look on his face. The underground hero then dismissed them for the rest of the day, saying that he and the other members of the U.A. staff need the rest of the day to discuss a rather troubling emergency situation. Since Aizawa said that the whole of the school's staff had to discuss an emergency situation, that told them that all of the students at U. be out of classes earlier than normal.

Granted, some of the 1-A students, especially those who were able to notice the look on their sensei's face such as Izuku, Tenya and Yaoyorozu, questioned what was going on, only for them to be told by Aizawa that it's classified information that they would get something of a glimpse of in a few days anyway. That just gave the smarter, more questioning students of the class even more reason to wonder, and both Izuku and Yaoyorozu began to worry considerably (Tenya was also worried, but not to the same extent).

…As for the rest of class 1-A, they were all happy to get out of class early, with some of them, such as Bakugo and his squad, all cheering for the early release. Aizawa told his students to just gather their things and get going, muttering something about 'Sekijiro's brat Monoma having to be the one responsible' that only Izuku was able to pick up on. The green-eyed boy had a strong yet worrying feeling that what he heard Aizawa mutter to himself must have something to do with what was going on, and he made a mental note to look into it if he could later.

The 1-A girls decided to leave the classroom as a group, all of them having agreed to hang out after class. After Aizawa had left the classroom, the twenty students of 1-A were all gearing up to leave, and the girls of the class were all at the door. However, before they could leave, the girls heard Kaminari's voice call out, "Hey, umm, Kyoka?" The girls turned around and saw that Kaminari was standing there, a mildly unsure look on his face that showed that he still wanted to give what he was going to try to do a chance.

"Umm, I found that note you wrote in my textbook as I was putting my stuff away," the electric quirk boy began in an unsure tone, scratching the back of his head as he spoke, "Umm…look, Kyoka." Letting out a resigned sigh, Kaminari said, "I'm going to be honest. You really did a number to me when you lashed out that day we had that date. I never had any of whatever sort of ideas Mineta might have put into your head. All I wanted to do with you was to have what Ojiro has with Hagakure, what Izuku has with Bakugo's mom. I'm…" Hesitating a bit before he went on, Kaminari said, "…I'm sorry that it didn't work."

"No, Kaminari," Kyoka began, gently shaking her head, "Don't apologize. You aren't the one that screwed things up here. I am."

Kaminari had an unreadable expression as he listened to the earphone jack girl, looking serious as he considered her words. Letting out another resigned sigh, Kaminari said, "Look, Kyoka, still being honest here. I still like you." This confession drew a surprised look out of not just Kyoka, but the other 1-A girls as well. "I mean, why wouldn't I?" the electric quirk boy continued, "You are still one of the cutest girls at school here."

Mina opened her mouth to try and say something, but before she could get even one word out, Kaminari held a hand up to cut off any response from any of the girls. "…But still," Kaminari went on, "I'm…*sigh*…I'm still hurting from what you did, especially after all that I did. I just don't feel at this point that I can try for that with you again." Both Kaminari and Kyoka both had sad looks on their respective faces.

It was during that when a slight hint of hope entered Kaminari's expression. "…Although I really appreciate your attempt to try and apologize," Kaminari said, "And I'm pretty sure that we can swing being friends like what you asked in the note." Hearing that Kaminari was accepting the apology from Kyoka, that he was still willing to be friends with her, brought a measure of relief to all of the girls, Kyoka herself especially. "Anyway," Kaminari said as he turned to leave, "I need to go meet with Bakugo, Sero and Kirishima. You're probably going to want to come along for this as well, Mina."

"Right," Mina replied with an affirmative nod as she followed Kaminari out of the classroom, leaving the rest of the 1-A girls behind. After Kaminari and Mina were gone, Kyoka turned to face the other girls and let out a resigned sigh.

"…Well, at least Kaminari accepted my apology," the rock lover remarked, "Given what I did, I think that's as best as I'm going to get."

As the other girls tried to reassure Kyoka that there may be some slight chance much later down the line that she and Kaminari might have the chance to try and become an item again, Mineta came over to the girls. "Hey girls," the infamous pervert greeted, "What are you all talking about over here?" The girls all turned to regard Mineta, and all of them had bitter, angry expressions on their faces (Hagakure too, but no one could see it), with Kyoka's expression being the harshest of the looks being sent towards Mineta by far.

Seeing all of the girl turn to face him like that drew a bit of alarm out of Mineta. "What did I do?" Mineta asked in a defensive tone. At that prompting, Kyoka quickly turned to properly face Mineta, then she swung her right foot up quickly so that it struck Mineta right in his hidden treasure, scoring a critical hit. The crippling blow sent Mineta sprawling onto the floor, covering his little Mineta with both hands as he gasped in pain.

As the girls all looked at the downed Mineta, without even the tiniest sliver of sympathy for the purple ball-haired boy found from any of the girls, Yaoyorozu laid a hand on Kyoka's shoulder as the earphone jack girl breathed through her nostrils rather forcefully, a clear sign that she was in a very foul mood when it comes to Mineta. When she noticed that there was a hand laying on her shoulder, Kyoka turned to face the appropriate direction, thus seeing Yaoyorozu look at her with a look of understanding sympathy.

"Kyoka…" Yaoyorozu said, "…That was the right thing to do."

END, CHAPTER TEN

Author's notes;

This story is set in a high school, with teenagers and romantic relations abound, and all of the trouble and misunderstandings that comes with it. Sure, Kaminari and Kyoka don't get together here, but at least _some_ manner of relationship, albeit a slightly tentative platonic one, was able to be salvaged in the end. And who knows? Things between Kaminari and Kyoka may heal enough later down the line for there to be another chance of the two becoming an item.

Anyway, I have a multi-part deal in mind that will take up the end of this arc, but I have at least a few more chapters in mind before that. I have all of the ideas for said chapters in mind as well. I just don't know what order I want to put most of them in, aside for one where Uraraka's parents' construction company gets some much needed love (and income). There's also a chapter idea that I have in mind involving Bakugo and Inko, and you know what? I'll do that one next.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter eleven: …Well he never specified what _kind_ of relationship

It was a typical day of classes over at U.A. …Or rather, it _would_ be, if it wasn't for the fact that classes were canceled for the day before any of the students even got to the school building. Izuku voiced suspicion that classes being canceled for the day today has something how their homeroom teacher Aizawa was acting yesterday afternoon when he returned to the classroom and told all of them that classes for the rest of that day were canceled. The green-eyed boy also voiced concern with the look that he, as well as Yaoyorozu and Tenya, all noticed on the look on the face of the underground hero.

…But the rest of class 1-A, as well as any other U.A. student that you would ask, was ecstatic with having the day off from classes. Mei, who was looking forward to 'working on her babies in the workshop' was an exception, but everyone who is familiar with the pink-haired girl would have expected this out of her. As for Shinso, he said that he was going to take advantage of the surprise free day by going right back to bed, turning around and walking away. As the gathered crowd of students standing outside of the main school building of U.A. began to disperse, some of the 1-A students began to converse amongst themselves.

"Yo, Baku-bro," Kirishima began as he turned to face his explosive friend, "What do you make of the teachers just up and canceling classes for today?"

With an amused smirk, Bakugo remarked, "It means that we don't have to put up with any of those stupid extras that we're usually forced to-" Bakugo was cut off when he felt his phone go off in his pants pocket, so he reached in, fished out his phone, and saw that the caller ID was telling him that his mom Mitsuki was trying to get ahold of him. Scoffing in a mildly annoyed tone, Bakugo muttered more to himself than anyone else, "The hell does that old hag want?" Figuring that it would save trouble in the long run, the explosive teen decided to answer the call that his mom was trying to make to him.

"You're lucky that classes were canceled for today," Bakugo greeted Mitsuki when he answered her call, "Because otherwise some stupid extra might have chewed me out for talking on my phone in the school. …Yes, classes were canceled for today. …No, I have no fucking idea why classes were canceled. …How the hell should I know if stupid Deku is-" Bakugo then suddenly held his phone away from his ear as Mitsuki shouted at him from the other end, clearly giving her son a royal chewing out for insulting his classmate Izuku, who Mitsuki was dating.

After the shouting from his mom stopped, Bakugo said in a clearly annoyed tone, "Uhhg, fine, I'm sorry for insulting your boyfriend. Anywho, Deku's still here at the school. In fact, he's about a dozen or so feet away from where I'm currently standing. I'll go ask him for you." The explosive teen then proceeded to walk over to where Izuku was talking with Uraraka, Tenya and Todoroki. Seeing his friend go over to Izuku's group, Kirishima decided to follow.

When he and Kirishima made their way over to Izuku and his group, Bakugo said, "Oi, Deku."

Izuku, as well as his friends, turned to face the newly arrived Bakugo. "Oh, is something the matter, Kacchan?" Izuku replied.

Holding up his phone, Bakugo said, "The old hag called me, and after I told her that classes were canceled for today, she immediately asked if you would be free to go along with her on some sort of whatever that I didn't ask about because I don't care."

"It seems that you got a date today, Midoriya," Todoroki remarked, "I don't suppose you might give me some pointers on how I can get Reiko to like me when she and the rest of 1-B returns from their field trip, could you? Because it's clear that you know how to work with girls."

"I…" Izuku began, a hint of embarrassment clear in his tone, "…Honestly have no idea how I did it, Todoroki." Turning to face Bakugo, Izuku said, "Kacchan, can you tell Mitsuki that I'm free to go with her today, and I'm ready whenever she is?"

Rolling his eyes to express some annoyance, Bakugo held his phone back up to his head and said, "Yeah, mom, Deku's ready whenever you-" To the explosive teen's confusion, the call had suddenly cut off. Slipping his phone back into his pocket, Bakugo turned to look at the others that were still hanging around the front of the main school building. "…I think that she's coming right here to grab you, Deku," Bakugo said, his dry tone carrying a hint of exasperation.

…

Just as Bakugo had said, Mitsuki was on her way to U.A. to pick up Izuku the moment she suddenly ended her call to Bakugo. It was to the surprise of Bakugo, Izuku and the others that Mitsuki pulled up in her car about five minutes after she ended her call to Bakugo, driving up really quickly before suddenly coming to a screeching halt right in front of the main gate in front of the school grounds.

Bakugo, Kirishima and Izuku's friends watched as the ashy-haired woman drove off with the green-haired cinnamon roll, saying something about catching a movie. After Mitsuki's car was out of sight, Todoroki said to the rest of the group as a whole, "Well, that happened."

Growling in a frustrated tone, Bakugo snarled, "I still can't believe that my mom is dating stupid Deku now! The hell is she even thinking?!"

"For once, I have to agree with you, Bakugo," Uraraka muttered dryly to herself, too quietly for anyone to hear her properly. When Tenya turned to her and asked what she had said, Uraraka said, "I was just wishing that Bakugo wasn't loud all the time."

"Shove it, Round Face!" Bakugo snapped as he pointed an accusing finger at the gravity girl, "The last thing I need right now is more crap when the old hag is giving me more than enough to hold me over for the rest of the year!"

Uraraka, with Tenya and Todoroki both looking ready to back her up, was about to get into a spat with Bakugo, but before she or anyone present could get a word out, they all heard someone clapping their hands together, cutting them all off and prompting them all to turn to see who it was that was trying to get their attention. To the collective piqued curiosity of everyone there, it was Mineta that was clapping his hands to get their attention as he came walking over to them.

With all eyes on him, Mineta turned his attention to focus on Bakugo. "Bakugo," Mineta began, sounding like he had a plan, "I couldn't help but overhear your complaining. To be honest, I can understand why you're upset." Gesturing to the explosive teen with his right hand, the infamous pervert said, "Hence why I come to you with an idea on how you can get back at Midoriya."

"Oh?" Bakugo said, his interest piqued, "And what do you have in mind, Grape Head?"

With a mischievous smile that had a hint of dark amusement, Mineta said, "You should start up a relationship with Mrs. Midoriya."

Everyone was staring at Mineta in stunned silence, as if he had just suddenly grown a second head, even though that's not how his quirk works at all. "…Excuse me?" Bakugo began, easily sounding like he was liable to attack Mineta with explosions at any given moment, "What the fuck did you just say?"

"Now hear me out," Mineta said as he gestured for Bakugo to hold his horses, "You're upset that Midoriya is in a relationship with _your_ mom, right? Then the best way to get back at him is for you to have a relationship with _his_ mom. You know, give Midoriya a taste of his own medicine."

"There is no fucking way that I'm going to do that," Bakugo said firmly, "That is beyond wrong on so many levels."

Shrugging indifferently, Mineta replied, "Fine then. It's no skin of my nose if Midoriya ends up as your step-father one day." Knowing exactly how Bakugo would react upon hearing that, the infamous pervert immediately took off running, thankful that Bakugo was kept from going after him by Kirishima, assisted by Todoroki and Tenya, holding him back.

After Mineta was out of sight, Bakugo snarled, "I'll kill him. I swear I will. Grape Head is a dead man walking."

"Dude, chillax," Kirishima advised, "Mineta's just trying to ruffle your feathers." Crossing his arms over his chest, Kirishima continued with an amused smirk on his face, "Besides, I bet that he's just pissy that Pony is effectively off the market for him since you got your eyes on her."

As Kirishima talked with Bakugo, Todoroki let out a relieved sigh, which was picked up on by both Uraraka and Tenya. When the two of them asked him about it, Todoroki explained to them, "I was afraid that I might have had to kick Bakugo's ass when I heard that he was aiming to win over one of the girls in 1-B, out of worry that it was Reiko. Luckily, we just heard Kirishima say that Bakugo is after Pony instead."

"Eat shit, IcyHot!" Bakugo barked at the dual-natured quirk boy.

* * *

Later that afternoon, Bakugo was hanging out with his 'squad', as Kirishima, Sero, Kaminari and Mina were collectively referred to from time to time. The five teens were grabbing lunch at some burger place (they _did_ have the day off from classes, after all), and they were eating together. To the piqued interest of the boys, Mina was reading a book during lunch. "…Hey Pinky," Bakugo said, getting the pink girl's attention. Pointing to her book, the explosive teen asked, "The hell are you reading?"

"Oh, you mean this?" Mina asked as she held up her book to emphasize it, "It's a book that is a collection of personal stories various people submitted about times that they have had with one of their grandparents." Looking back into her book, Mina continued, "All of the little short stories in here are really touching, and this one in here about a Michigan boy named Lincoln spending the day with his grandfather kind of brings a tear to my eye since it reminds me of my late grandfather from my dad's side of the family."

"…What the hell is a grandfather?" Bakugo asked, drawing surprised looks out of his squad, "For that matter, what the hell is a grandparent?"

Nearly snorting some of his sports drink he got from the soda fountain out of his nose, Kaminari said, "Bakugo, dude, please tell us that you're joking."

Giving Kaminari and the rest of the squad a deadpan look, the explosive teen dryly replied, "Does it look like I'm joking, Kaminari?"

"Bakugo," Mina began, a hint of mild concern on her face, "Don't you have any grandparents?"

"Since I have no fucking clue what those are, I'm going to have to go with no," Bakugo replied.

"Baku-bro, dude," Kirishima began, the look on his face being comparable to that of Mina's, "A grandparent is the parent of your parent. Your mom's mom and dad would be your grandmother and grandfather, and your dad's mom and dad would also be your grandmother and grandfather."

The explosive teen looked at his red-haired friends with a confused look. "…My parents also have parents?" Bakugo said, then he promptly scoffed in an annoyed tone before saying, "So what, does that mean that my mom's folks are even bigger assholes that her, and my shitty dad's folks are even more spinless than he is?" Crossing his arms over his chest, Bakugo said, "Great. Just when I thought my family couldn't be any lamer."

"Do…" Sero said, "…Do you even know anything about any of your grandparents?"

Giving the tape dispensing boy a wry look, Bakugo replied, "What do you think?"

Bakugo's squad began to convers amongst themselves in a group huddle, leaving Bakugo out. The explosive teen watched on as the huddle continued, a mildly annoyed scowl on his face. When the huddle broke and the others all looked at Bakugo, Kaminari said, "Bakugo, bro, dude. As much as this might piss you off to hear me say it, I think you ought to try calling your dad and ask him about his parents."

"Then ask your mom about hers afterwards," Sero added.

Sighing in an annoyed tone, Bakugo said, "You know what, guys? I'll humor you." Bakugo fished his phone out, dialed his dad's number in, and waited for the call to go through. After a few seconds, the other end picked up, and Bakugo heard his dad Masaru greet him in a pleasantly surprised tone. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," Bakugo remarked, "I did great in the recent tournament where stupid Deku won by ringing me out. At least he wasn't fucking sandbagging me, so I'm happy with that second place medal. But that's not why I called you, dad." Taking in some air before breathing it out, Bakugo said, "…I want to know about your parents, dad. You know, my grandparents from your side?"

…

Kirishima, Sero, Kaminari and Mina watched as Bakugo listened to Masaru talk on for about fifteen minutes before having to end the call so he could attend to some work, but not before telling Bakugo that he could come by his apartment later to learn more about his grandparents from his (Masaru's) side of the family.

After the call with his dad ended, Bakugo immediately called up his mom, who was getting lunch with Izuku at a place that served pizza at the time he called her, and asked her about her parents, his grandparents from her side of the family. Just as it was when Bakugo had talked to Masaru, Mitsuki spent the better portion of fifteen to twenty minutes going on, right before having to end the call because she was going to take (i.e. drag) Izuku along with her to go look at some stores at the mall.

After the call with Mitsuki ended and he slipped his phone back into his pocket, Bakugo said, "Well, it turns out that all four of my grandparents died from various causes before I was born, with my grandfather from my mom's side being the last to go due to Kidney Failure, about three months before I was born." Not that any of his 'squad' had noticed it, but a hint of longing to know something flashed in the explosive teen's eyes, mixed with a bit of sadness. Giving Mina a curious look, Bakugo asked, "Hey Pinky, would you mind if I borrow that book of yours? I want to give it a read."

"Oh," Mina replied, both her tone and expression showing surprise that was mixed with a bit of piqued interest. Handing her book over to Bakugo, Mina said, "Here you go. You can return it whenever." The explosive teen, without any of his usual attitude, nodded in thanks as he received the book from Mina.

…

Later that evening, Bakugo was sitting on his bed in his dorm room at Heights Alliance, the book he borrowed from Mina earlier in the day resting on his lap, open to one of the last pages. Bakugo flipped one of the pages over to continue reading, and after about a minute, he ended up closing the book, a sign that he had read the entirety of it. With the book's back cover facing up to Bakugo, he just sat there on his bed, contemplating all of the short stories that he had just read about people talking about at least one of their grandparents.

A teardrop fell from Bakugo's right eye and onto the book's back cover, splattering a bit. That was followed by a few more tears, which were accompanied by some soft sniffling from Bakugo. The explosive teen was shaking very mildly, his shoulders trembling a bit as he was overcome by all of the stories he had just read, all of the experiences that he found himself wishing that he had, yet he didn't have any like them and never will.

"…Damn it," Bakugo said softly in a sad tone, his voice mildly broken by his crying.

* * *

The following day _also_ saw the students of U.A. having the day off from classes. Although more than the bare minimum were now beginning to wonder what exactly was prompting the teachers and Principal Nezu to cancel classes so much in a row, the vast majority of the students were still happy as clams to have no classes to worry about. Mina in particular was wondering what she would do with all of the free time on her hands, not wanting to waste even one moment of what she was calling her 'surprise vacation'.

And it wasn't just the students of U.A. that were happy with all of this free time; family of those students were glad to have this surprise free time to ask their children how things are going with them. Tsuyu, when she got together with the other class 1-A girls on the second whole day of canceled classes, would tell them on how she was able to spend some time with her younger siblings, even helping her younger brother Samidare with advice when he told her about a girl in his class at the elementary school that confessed to him the day before.

Of course, Mitsuki was also glad for all of the extra time off, but that was because she wanted more time with Izuku. Since all of Bakugo's squad was busy, he was left with nothing do to, and when he said as such, Izuku told him that his (Izuku's) mom would need some help as she was going to be moving out some old furniture as she was getting new furniture to replace it. At first Bakugo objected to it, but Mitsuki, not wanting to 'upset her boyfriend's mother' as she put it, yelled at her son to agree to help Inko.

As such, Bakugo went to the Midoriya apartment to help Inko with the old/new furniture. It wasn't much, just getting rid of an old armchair that was out of place with the much newer sofa that was in the living room. Given that he had literally nothing else to do for that day, Bakugo ended up just sitting on the sofa and watching TV. "Thanks again for helping me with the new armchair, Bakugo," Inko remarked, sounding like the thankful woman that she was.

The explosive teen scoffed indifferently as he stared at a commercial that was advertising a line of shampoo bottles that were themed based off of various pro heroes; Bakugo thought that the one based off of Ryukyu was the most appealing of the lot, but only because it was the one with his favorite scent. Waving a hand in the air, Bakugo said, "It's no big deal, Mrs. Midoriya."

"You know," Inko began, "I think that there is a good bit of time before Izuku returns from his date with your mother. I don't suppose that there's anything you might want to do until then?" To be honest, Bakugo was not in any mood to do anything, given that he was still moderately annoyed that his mom was dating Izuku. Still, not wanting to incur the wrath of Mitsuki, Bakugo decided to suggest something that he found that he was a bit surprised at himself for suggesting, even though he meant it as a joke. He's not even sure where he got it from.

"Pfft, I don't know," Bakugo began, "Maybe we can bake cookies together?"

"Sure, we can do that," the Midoriya matriarch replied casually, sounding amused by the idea.

Bakugo, upon hearing Inko agree to the idea of baking cookies with him, turned around to look at the fuller bodied woman. "…Wait, seriously?" Bakugo said, sounding a mix of surprised and mildly confused that Inko so readily agreed to his suggestion that he made as a joke.

* * *

Bakugo and Inko ended up making about four trays worth of peanut butter cookies, based off of a recipe that Inko had in a cookbook that, as she told Bakugo, she bought at a yard sale. "So, tell me what you think," Inko said as she picked up and handed one of the cookies to Bakugo.

Receiving the cookie from the Midoriya matriarch, Bakugo, still a bit surprised that his joking suggestion not only happened but got this far, took a bit out of the cookie. The explosive teen's eyes widened a bit out of surprise, as the cookie was pretty good. "Wow, Mrs. Midoriya," Bakugo said, "These cookies are fu-" Bakugo suddenly slapped his right hand (the left one held the cookie he was eating) over his mouth. With a somewhat serious look on his face, Bakugo lowered his hand back down before saying in a manner that sounded like he was being careful with his choice of words, "…These cookies are pretty good."

As he ate more of the cookie he held, Bakugo noticed that Inko was looking at him with a look of surprise on her face. When Bakugo returned that look with a curious look of his own, Inko said, "…You were about to curse, but you caught yourself before you actually said any cursing, then you spoke like you were careful of what you were saying." Smiling a bit with a hint of happy pride in her expression, Inko remarked, "I bet your mother will be proud of you."

Bakugo turned away from the fuller bodied woman, a blushing look of embarrassment on his face. "Umm, I'm just trying out some advice some friends gave me since there's this girl at school that I like, and I want her to like me," Bakugo explained, "And since one of my friends that I'm talking about is also a girl, I think that they know what they're talking about." Inko, for her part, could not help but giggle a bit as she saw the normally violent-natured boy acting like a bashful schoolchild. Inko's giggling only made Bakugo blush all the more harder.

…

Later that afternoon, Mitsuki came walking in through the apartment's front door, with Izuku following her inside. Cold, blowing winds flew into the apartment until Mitsuki closed the door behind her and Izuku. "Hot fucking damn!" the ashy-haired woman exclaimed, "It's as cold as a witch's teat out-" Mitsuki stopped short when she, as well as Izuku, both caught the smell of freshly baked cookies. Looking over to where Inko was standing out in the kitchen with Bakugo, Mitsuki said, "Yo, Inko! You made cookies?"

"It was Katsuki's idea, believe it or not," Inko replied, "And thank you for closing the door when you did, Mitsuki. It really is a bit nippy out there." Bakugo shifted a bit when Inko said his first name, as well as grunting a bit in a clearly embarrassed tone.

Stretching her arms into the air, Mitsuki said, "Yeah, well, I figure that Katsuki and I have been in you and Izuku's hair enough for today. We'll be taking off now."

Nodding in understanding, Inko said, "Alright then, Mitsuki." Turning to where Bakugo was standing, the Midoriya matriarch said, "Katsuki, you ought to go get your coat and scarf on now before you leave with your mom. That cold will be killer if you aren't careful."

"…I don't have a scarf," Bakugo said, drawing a mildly shocked look out of Inko, "I did have a scarf a while ago, but…"

(FLASHBACK)

Bakugo, as well as all of his squad, were standing on a cement bridge over a wash that was currently flooded with water. A scarf was floating in the water, right before a motor boat went over it, with propeller pushing the boat forward shredding the scarf into useless scraps. After the boat was out of sight, the boys all turned to look at Mina, who had 'heh, heh' kind of look on her face. "…Sorry about that, Bakugo," Mina apologize rather bashfully.

"What made you think that throwing my scarf into the wash would save that seagull that was randomly swimming down there before it flew off as you threw my scarf to it?!" Bakugo snapped, "For that matter, why did you want save that seagull, and why did you have to use _my_ scarf of all things?!"

(END FLASHBACK)

"And now I don't," Bakugo said as he finished his short explanation to Inko, Mitsuki and Izuku, "And that is the end of that story."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Mitsuki said, "And here I thought that the blonde boy who shot lightning out of his nipples was the dumb one of the group."

"Mitsuki, that's not quite how Kaminari's quirk works," Izuku said, a hint of dryness in his tone.

Turning so that he could leave the apartment, Bakugo said, "Don't worry, Mrs. Midoriya, I'll manage just fine." Snarking a bit, the explosive teen added, "Unless Pinky decides to take my jacket and throw it into a hobo's fire to help keep him warm." With that last bit, Bakugo left the Midoriya apartment with Mitsuki, leaving Inko and Izuku alone. After the blonde mother and son pair left, quickly opening and closing the door as they left so as to not let in too much of the cold air in, Inko held a hand to her chin as she hummed in a contemplative manner.

* * *

The following day did see some classes at U.A., but Aizawa quickly informed his students that it was going to be a half-day. As the underground hero left his students to themselves as he went to go see Nezu and a few other school staff members about something, Kirishima, Kaminari and Sero all turned to Bakugo, who was currently taking off a scarf that clearly looked like it was knitted by someone who was working on it at home. "You get a new scarf, bro?" Sero asked as he pointed to the homemade scarf, which Bakugo just put away into his school bag.

"Yeah," Bakugo replied, "And I swear that if Pinky does with this scarf what she did with my last one, I will not hesitate to shove an explosion right up her ass!"

"Kacchan, I don't think that you have to go so far," Izuku said, "Besides, I'm certain that Mina won't do the same thing again, especially when you explain to her that my mom made that scarf for you."

Izuku mentioning where Bakugo got his new scarf from drew surprised looks out of Kirishima, Sero and Kaminari. Mina, who at that moment just came over with Izuku's usual friends, also heard where Bakugo got his new scarf from and was likewise surprised, as was Uraraka, Tenya and Todoroki. "…Mrs. Midoriya knitted a scarf for you?" Mina asked, sounding more surprised than anything else.

"They also baked cookies together yesterday," Izuku began to tell Mina and the others, "And my mom mentioned that at one point, Bakugo caught himself cursing and changed what he was saying to keep from actually saying any curse words."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait!" Mineta said suddenly as he came walking over, apparently having heard everything. To Bakugo, the infamous pervert said, "You watch your language around her, bake cookies with her and she even knitted you a scarf? Bakugo, when I suggested to you that you ought to start up a relationship with Midoriya's mom, I was expecting you to make her your girlfriend, not your grandmother!"

"The hell does it matter to you what kind of relationship I have with Mrs. Midoriya, Grape Head?" Bakugo snapped angrily, "Besides, I have no interest in her like you're suggesting! I'm already aiming to go after a girl here at U.A.!"

Crossing his arms over his chest, Mineta said, "Yeah, yeah, I heard. Frankly, I have to give you credit for liking a girl as hot and spankable as-" Mineta was cut off midsentence when Bakugo quickly swung his right foot up into Mineta's hidden treasure, scoring a critical hit and making Mineta kneel over on the floor of the 1-A classroom, coving his injured member with both of his hands as he gasped in pain and fell over onto his left side.

Pointing a warning finger at the downed Mineta, Bakugo snarled, "You so much as lewd even one hair on Pony's head, and I swear I will personally drop kick you off of the highest point here at U.A. that I can find and drag you up to. The same threat also applies if you ever again suggest that I should try and date Mrs. Midoriya." After he was done venting at Mineta, Bakugo looked around as he saw everyone look at him. "…What?" Bakugo asked, arching an eyebrow.

"…Just so you know," Todoroki began to the explosive teen, "I would have done the exact same thing if Mineta made any such movements towards Reiko."

"I cannot, as class rep, condone your actions that you took just now, Bakugo," Tenya said as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose a bit, "But I also cannot condone the behavior of our classmate whose scrotum you just assaulted with your foot. Therefore, I won't be bothering to scold you."

Scoffing in an indifferent tone, Bakugo said, "Whatever, Glasses."

Turning to face Bakugo, Izuku said, "Umm…Kacchan?" When Bakugo turned to face Izuku, the green-eyed boy said, "…Thanks for not being rude or anything to my mom."

Bakugo's expression softened just a bit. "…Well she did make me a new scarf," the explosive teen said, "And she's a hell of a lot nicer to me than my mom is." His eyes narrowing a bit, Bakugo said, "Seriously, Deku. What the fuck does my mother even see in you, especially given that you're a few months younger than _me_, and you're less than _half_ her age?" Izuku could only shrug in a manner that showed he had no idea what the ashy-haired woman saw in him.

"…Just forget it," Bakugo said, a hint of resigned frustration in his tone as he turned to go back to his desk. However, he stopped a few steps away from his desk, his back turned to face Izuku and the others. "…Can you tell her that I said thanks again for the scarf?" Bakugo asked, "If I don't see her first before you do?"

Izuku couldn't help but smile in a touched manner as he saw a side of Bakugo he felt was there all this time, yet hadn't seen the light of day in many years. Seeing it now at last, the green-eyed boy was glad, and he had his mother to thank for this, for getting through to Bakugo even though that wasn't exactly the plan when Bakugo spent the day with Inko yesterday. Similar to Izuku, the others who were watching this unfold were likewise surprised, all of them having no idea that a side of Bakugo such as this even existed.

Izuku nodded a bit in understanding as he was about to tell Bakugo that it wouldn't be any problem at all. However, before the green-haired cinnamon roll could even get one word out of his mouth, Aizawa opened the door and strode into the classroom, the suddenness of his entering, as well as how loud and forceful he was being, catching the attention of everyone in the room. Pointing to where Mineta was still laying on the floor after he was kicked in the balls by Bakugo, the underground hero said, "Mineta, get back to your seat now. I'm about to go over something of significance with the whole of the class, and I don't need you laying on the floor."

"What's going on, Aizawa-sensei?" Yaoyorozu asked.

"You all know how classes here at U.A. for the last few days have been canceled, and that today is just a half-day?" the underground hero began, immediately catching the attention of his students especially the ones that were worried about what's been going on behind the scenes for the last few days, "Well, it has to do with an incident involving your schoolmates in class 1-B during their field trip to the United States. Long story short, 1-B will be back here in Japan later today, you all are going to the airport to pick them up and help them as needed, and Sekijiro and I will work with the rest of the staff here to take care of damage control."

"Damage control?" Izuku said suddenly, sounding very much alarmed.

Gently shaking his head, Aizawa said, "The other teachers and I will explain things as they are needed. All that I ask of you all is that you do NOT try to dig into what happened over in the United States. The teachers and I will be handling that. Anyway, you all are coming with me to the airport now to receive Sekijiro and his class. Come along."

Without another word, Aizawa turned to leave the 1-A classroom. The students of 1-A, looking around at each other more out of confusion and, in the cases of Izuku, Yaoyorozu and Tenya, notable concern. Regardless, the twenty heroes-in-training did as they were told by Aizawa and, without a word of complaint or argue, they all got up (Mineta with some difficulty) and followed their teacher out of the classroom, out of U.A. as a whole.

END, CHAPTER ELEVEN

Author's note;

Well Bakugo _did_ start some manner of relationship with Inko, just as Mineta had suggested to him. But, just as this chapter's title would suggest, Mineta never bothered to specify _what_ kind of relationship he had in mind when he gave the idea to the explosive teen. And you have to admit that what happened here has some adorable factor. Also, I have something in mind with the bond that formed here between Bakugo and Inko, especially later down the line. Well anyway, the next chapter will be seeing the return of class 1-B to Japan safe and sound (see ch9 to brush up on changes made), as well as something that is of a rather tragic nature taking place.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter twelve: Well that would knock the wind out of his sails

Izuku was walking through the main gathering area on the first floor of the dorm building for class 1-A, wearing a casual outfit that he would typically don when not wearing his school uniform or his hero costume. A pair of cargo pants, a pair of boots, and a simple, though a bit on the baggy side, t-shirt that had the phrase 't-shirt' written on it over the chest area.

Izuku's mind was swimming with what all occurred the previous day; he, as well as all of his classmates, had to go to the airport to help pick up class 1-B, who had just gotten back from their international field trip to the United States. With the way that Aizawa, as well as a lot of other U.A. staff members, had been acting in the days leading up to 1-B's return to Japan, the green-eyed boy worried that something really bad happened to 1-A's rival class.

Thankfully, all twenty of 1-B's students were all unharmed. However, Sekijiro did say that Ibara was in quite a lot of trouble because of how she, as the teachers were putting it, had 'shown that she needed to be more understanding of the faiths of others'. Many in 1-A, Izuku included, were surprised to hear that it was Ibara, the devout Christian of 1-B, who had gotten into so much trouble, with many in 1-A such as Bakugo and all of his 'squad' claiming that they thought it would have been Monoma instead.

Izuku also heard mention of how there was a local girl in the States that had a devastatingly powerful-looking lightning quirk, but any and all questions in this field were shot down before they even got answers. Izuku wanted to know more about this lightning quirk (he's something of a quirk fan boy, after all), especially since the teachers were being so secretive about it, but he was coming up dry. Figuring that he had some time to get the answers that he was looking for, Izuku decided to put it on the back burner for the time being.

With that in mind, Izuku decided to go meet up with his adult girlfriend Mitsuki Bakugo, who was the mother of Katsuki. As the green-eyed boy walked by, he got the attention of his classmates Ojiro and Hagakure, both of them also wearing casual outfits. "Hey, Izuku!" Hagakure called out, making Izuku pause and turn to see her and Ojiro walk up to him, "You look like you're going somewhere! What's up?"

"Oh, hey guys," Izuku greeted back to his classmates, "Yeah, I'm actually on my way to go see Mitsuki. She wants to take me to the movie theater in town because there's this movie that she wants to see."

Crossing his arms over his chest, Ojiro said with a hint of knowing amusement in his tone, "Ah, your girlfriend wants to take you out." Gently shaking his head in a gesture that conveyed some degree of amusement, Ojiro continued, "Well, if she's anything like Bakugo since she's his mom and him being raised by her shaped a lot of who he is as a whole, I think that I can fairly guess that she's aiming to see that R-rated raunchy comedy movie that's in theaters right now."

The green-haired cinnamon roll's shoulders sank a bit as he said with a hint of defeat in his tone, "Yeah, I know which movie you're talking about, and that's the exact movie that Mitsuki said she wants to go see."

"Ooh! Ooh!" Hagakure said suddenly and in an excited tone as she hopped up and down a bit, "I have a really cute idea!" With both of the boys looking at her, the invisible girl said to Izuku, "Why don't you call Mrs. Bakugo and see if she's okay with me and Ojiro tagging along! It'll be like a double date!"

Raising an eyebrow while wearing a look of piqued curiosity, Izuku said, "…Actually, I'll see if Mitsuki would be okay with that." The green-eyed boy pulled his phone out, dialed up the ashy-haired woman's number, and after a few seconds where Mitsuki picked up, Izuku told her about what two of his classmates had suggested, which was met by excited squeals from Mitsuki. She was clearly on board with the idea, it seemed, and after Mitsuki told Izuku that she'd be by to get him, Ojiro and Hagakure, she hung up.

Looking to his classmates, Izuku said, "Umm…she seems excited for the idea of a double date, at the very least."

"Ooh, this is going to be so much fun!" Hagakure cheered as she jumped up in excitement, pumping a fist into the air as she jumped (though due to Hagakure's quirk her fist pump was not visible). Turning to Ojiro, Hagakure asked, "Do you think I have time to change into something cuter before Mrs. Bakugo gets here?"

"I…can't say for certain," Ojiro replied, still trying to process everything as it was happening so fast for him, "Although I'm fairly certain that she wouldn't mind waiting a bit for you to finish getting ready if she gets here while you're changing."

* * *

Luckily for Hagakure, she was spared a bit of embarrassment since she changed into a new outfit and met Izuku and Ojiro back down on the ground floor of Heights Alliance before Mitsuki came by to pick them all up. They all had a blast on the double date, which went by more smoothly than Hagakure had anticipated since she expected that they would all have to take the train to get from place to place, but Mitsuki was able to drive everyone around as she had a car.

The four of them had a lot of fun on the double date; they went to that movie that Mitsuki had wanted to see (as an adult, she was able to bring the teenagers in with her), they grabbed an early dinner at a pizza place, and they even went to an arcade, where Mitsuki blew everyone (not just the teens but _every_ person who came to the arcade to play the games) out of the water with how epically she tore up the dancefloor on a dancing game.

The group was taking a break after Mitsuki won (more than) enough tickets at that dancing game to get the most expensive prize from the ticket exchange counter, a twenty-four inch tall plushy that had a vague resemblance to a certain fat creature that had a tendency to block progress into certain areas by just lying in the road and falling asleep. Izuku, Mitsuki, Ojiro and Hagakure were all sitting at some tables near the concession area, drinking from large cups of soda, as they took a break from playing the arcade games.

During the break, Mitsuki decided to regale the teens by telling them a story from the past. "…It was so rough for my bastard ex that it fractured his pelvic bone in three places," Mitsuki said as she wrapped her story up, "And about nine months or so later, I had Katsuki." Mitsuki spoke in a tone that was a mix of amusement and a little pride as she told her story, and when she finished her story she took a sip from her soda, unconcerned by the shocked looks on the respective faces of Izuku and Ojiro (even though her face couldn't be seen, it can be safely assumed that Hagakure's expression was comparable to that of the boys). Setting her cup down on the table, Mitsuki said in a casual tone, "So Izuku, do you or either of your friends here have anything interesting to tell?"

"I…" Izuku began, still a bit unsettled by the contents of the story Mitsuki had just finished telling, "…Don't think that either Ojiro, Hagakure or I have anything near as interesting as the story of how-" Izuku was cut off when a ringtone of All Might's voice saying 'A PHONECALL IS HERE!' went off. With a mildly sheepish look on his face, the green-eyed boy said to the others as he reached into his pocket, "Sorry about that, guys."

When Izuku got his phone out, he was surprised to see that the caller ID identified the called as Bakugo. "Huh, Kacchan is calling me," Izuku remarked.

"Oh, that reminds me," Mitsuki said when she heard that her son was calling her boyfriend, "My brat isn't giving you any trouble, is he?"

Izuku gently shook his head as he said, "No, nowhere near as much as he used to. I think that a lot of what happened in recent events over the last few weeks have really helped to make him into a better person." Answering the call, while putting it on speaker so Mitsuki can cover for him if the explosive teen decided to try and chew his head off, Izuku said, "Hey, Kacchan, this is certainly a surprise, getting a call from-"

"Oi, Deku!" Bakugo snapped, interrupting the green-haired cinnamon roll midsentence, "Where the hell are you?!" Bakugo's angry tone and snappy attitude tone made it clear that he was in no mood for joking around. "You need to get over here, like, now!" the explosive teen demanded, his tone leaving no room for arguing.

…Although that didn't stop Mitsuki from deciding to verbally tear her son a new one for talking to her boyfriend like that, especially since he was demanding for Izuku to drop everything, which would mean the date would have to be canceled midway through. "Oi, you stupid brat!" the ashy haired woman hissed, "The hell is wrong with you?!"

"Mom?! The hell are you doing over there?!" Bakugo asked, taken a bit by surprise.

"I'm on a date with Mitsuki right now, Kacchan," Izuku explained, "I actually have the call on speaker in case she wanted to say something to you. Oh, we're actually on a double date with Ojiro and Hagakure." To point that out, both Ojiro and Hagakure said hello to Bakugo.

The explosive teen grumbled a bit in an angry and mildly annoyed tone. "Well this is just great," Bakugo said, "Look, Deku, it's really important that you come over here now. My mom should also come along as well." Izuku and the others could tell by the sudden shift in Bakugo's tone that something serious was going on.

"Katsuki, what the fuck is going on?" Mitsuki asked, now on a bit of alert.

Bakugo sighed in a resigned tone on the other end before saying, "Look, here's what happened. I stopped by the apartment where Deku's mom lives to see how she was doing. She's a bit under the weather, don't worry it's nothing too serious, and she asked me to handle a bit of shopping for her. I agreed, went to the store with the money Mrs. Midoriya provided me, got everything on the list, and then came back."

"So you're at Inko's right now?" Mitsuki asked, noticing a steadily growing look of worry on Izuku's face, given that his mom is involved in why Bakugo wants the two of them to come over and meet him pronto, "Katsuki, what happened?"

"I was getting to that, hag," Bakugo snarled a bit, "Anyway, when I entered the apartment with the stuff Mrs. Midoriya asked me to get for her, I found her sitting at the dining table crying her eyes out. Also, her phone was laying on the table in front of her. From the looks of it, I'd say that she got some really bad news over the phone while I was out." Sighing in a resigned tone, the explosive teen said, "Mrs. Midoriya hasn't said anything about it, and she even hugged me really tightly when I asked her why she was crying."

Now everyone at that table in the concession area of the arcade was a bit alarmed; not just Izuku and Mitsuki, but Ojiro and Hagakure as well. "…Katsuki," Mitsuki said, her tone serious, "I'm going to have to drop of you and Izuku's classmates back at the dorms at U.A., then Izuku and I will head right over to meet you." The explosive teen agreed and ended the call. Looking over to Ojiro and Hagakure, Mitsuki said, "Sorry kids, but it looks like we're going to have to end things here because Izuku and I have to get going."

"I understand, Mrs. Bakugo," Ojiro replied, "It sounds like something really serious is going on right now."

"Ooh, I hope everything is okay," Hagakure remarked in a concerned and worried tone. Both Izuku and Mitsuki thanked Ojiro and Hagakure for the concern before the whole lot of them left the arcade, given that things hand to be ended early.

* * *

After Ojiro and Hagakure were dropped off at the dorms over at U.A., Mitsuki took Izuku right over to his mom's apartment. The two of them rushed up the stairs to the right floor, and Izuku didn't even bother to knock before opening the door to the apartment. When Izuku entered the apartment with Mitsuki, the first thing that the two of them saw was Bakugo, wearing one of his casual outfits, standing there, as if he were waiting for them.

Bakugo's arms were crossed over his chest, but the look on his face was not one of annoyed impatience, but rather of worried concern. It was an expression that Izuku and Mitsuki both wore themselves when they heard the soft, sad crying of Inko coming from the kitchen area. "About time you guys got here," Bakugo said, his tone more concerned and resigned than anything.

"Kacchan, do you have any idea why my mom is crying?" Izuku asked, clearly sounding worried about his mother.

Sighing in a resigned tone, Bakugo said, "No, Deku. Your mom said that you were the first person that she wanted to tell what's going on." With a shrug, Bakugo continued, "That being said, I figure my mom and I ought to bail unless your mom is okay with letting the two of us stick around. You know, since our respective families have known each other since forever."

The green-eyed boy nodded in agreement as he, with Mitsuki and Bakugo following him, walked into the kitchen area, where Inko was still sitting at the table, softly crying her eyes out. Izuku's mind was racing a mile a minute, going over any number of possibilities of what kind of news his mother could have gotten that would make her cry like this; the most likely scenarios that came to mind for Izuku were his mother being told that she was losing the apartment and would have to move out, or that her bank account was emptied by some sophisticated thief and that she was now broke.

Upon seeing his normally happy and positive-attitude mother in such an upset and vulnerable state made the green-haired cinnamon roll's heart break. "Umm, mom?" Izuku said in a tentative tone, worried about what might be wrong. Upon hearing her son's voice, Inko looked up and saw him, her face stained by streaks left by the tears that have been (and still are) running down her notably plump cheeks.

"I-I-Izuk-ku," Inko stammered out, her tone sad and lame, before she got up and, without warning, threw her arms around her son, dragging him into a hug. "I'm sorry," the fuller bodied woman said, "I am so sorry, Izuku."

"Mom, what's going on?" Izuku asked, now more alarmed than ever. He knew that he was going to dread whatever news that his mother told him, but even Izuku, as well as Bakugo and Mitsuki since they were there to hear the news as well, was not expecting the complete bombshell that was going to be dropped on his life here and now.

"Izuku, your father's been killed."

* * *

Word spread fast around U.A. about the tragic and early demise of Hisashi Midoriya. Sure, when Izuku and Bakugo told their respective immediate circles about what happened, the lot of them all agreed to keep things to themselves. But Mineta overheard about what happened to Izuku's dad, and he proceeded to spread the word to the rest of the class, which prompted a lot of them to give their condolences to the green-eyed boy. Izuku was grateful for all of the concern, even though he wanted to tell everyone at his own pace rather than have the infamous pervert overhear things and deciding to spread the word for him.

Also, some of the students in 1-B heard of what happened to Izuku's father as well. It was either Monoma spreading the word around to everyone in 1-B, or it was Pony's doing since Bakugo told her about what had happened when she asked him why he looked so down. Either way, the students of 1-B likewise expressed condolences to Izuku. Also, word of the Midoriya patriarch's demise somehow got to Shinso of class 1-C, Mei from the support department, and even the Big Three got word of what happened. Luckily, all five of them said that they kept word of what happened to themselves, as they respected Izuku's privacy.

As the rest of 1-A watched as Mirio and (surprisingly) Tamaki both wrap Izuku up in a group hug, the rest of 1-A and Nejire saw Aizawa and Hizashi come walking into the class 1-A room. "Well this is certainly a surprise," the underground hero said, a hint of mild curiosity in his tone, as he spotted Mirio, Tamaki and Nejire in the classroom, "Paying your junior student a visit in his time of need, I take it?"

"Well why wouldn't we, Aizawa-sensei?" Nejire asked, sounding like what she and the other older students were doing was natural and maybe even a bit expected, "When we heard that one of the first-years suffered a terrible loss, we knew that it was our job as-"

Holding up a hand to cut the older girl student off, Aizawa, with a hint of amusement in his expression over seeing how much the older students took mentoring the younger ones seriously, said, "That's all well and good, and I can say for certain that my brats here can benefit from you and the boys caring about them. But I'm going to have to cut things off here for now." Turning his attention to Izuku, Aizawa said, "Midoriya, the principal wanted me and Hizashi here to find you and bring you to his office, where he and your mother are waiting."

"My mom's here?" Izuku said, sounding worried.

"Relax, kid," Hizashi remarked, "Nezu says that he and his special guest want to explain a few things to you and your mom is all."

"Special guest?" Izuku repeated in a confused tone.

Aizawa let out a sigh before saying, "Just come with us, Midoriya." Figuring that it was best not to keep his mom and everyone else in Nezu's office waiting, Izuku left with Aizawa and Hizashi to go see what was going on, leaving everyone else alone in the 1-A classroom.

* * *

When Izuku got to Nezu's office with Aizawa and Hizashi, the green-haired cinnamon roll saw that the quirked animal was sitting at his desk, as to be expected. Sitting in one of the two chairs placed directly in front of Nezu's desk was Inko, and standing off to the side behind Nezu was a woman about the same height as Inko. This mystery woman was nowhere near as well-fed as Inko, and had fair skin, yellow-blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, and she wore a black business top, a matching skirt, and black heels. The mystery woman also held a vanilla folder in her arms.

"Ah, there you are, Izuku," Nezu greeted, his tone casual as always although it seemed to carry a hint of sympathy for the green-eyed boy. Gesturing to the empty seat next to Inko, Nezu said, "Please sit. There are a few things that Homika and I need to go over with you and your mom."

Izuku, curious that the mystery woman, apparently named Homika, had some manner of involvement here, did as his principal asked and sat in the chair next to where his mother sat. Sighing in a resigned tone, Nezu said to Izuku and Inko, "Midoriya family, I'm certain that the both of you have already heard this from a few people already, but let me just first say that I am truly sorry for the loss of your husband and father. His death while he was on the job was a very tragic happening that I would undo in a heartbeat if I could."

"What I would like to know is how my father died," Izuku began as he spoke, "As morbid as it may sound to some. I mean, how could he be killed? He was working a work post abroad."

Stepping forward a bit, the woman identified as Homika said, "That's where I can fill in some blanks for you." With (what was left of) the Midoriyas looking at her, Homika said, "My name is Homika Virbank. I worked extensively with Hisashi while he was-"

"No you didn't," Hizashi said, "I've never worked with you a day in my life."

Smacking his co-worker and fellow pro hero in the back of the head, Aizawa said, "She said Hisashi, not Hizashi." After emphasizing the 's' in the first name and the 'z' in the second, the underground hero said, "Midoriya's father's name had an 's' after the Hi, and yours has a 'z'. Now be quiet."

"…Oops, sorry," Hizashi said sheepishly as he scrunched up a bit and stayed silent.

Turning back to Izuku and Inko, Homika said, "Umm, yes. Well anyway, I worked extensively with your late husband and father while he was on his latest assignment. You see, while he did indeed worked abroad, it was not a simple work post as you were both led to believe."

Izuku had a look of curiosity on his face when he heard this; even Inko, whose face still had an expression of grief, found her curiosity piqued. "…My father didn't have a work post?" Izuku asked, "Then what did he do for a living?"

"You see, here's the truth, and I'm glad that this room is soundproofed and confirmed not to have any bugs," Homika said, "You see Inko and Izuku, the late Hisashi was actually working for me and my organization as an agent specializing in infiltrating groups of known international thieves. Every assignment that I threw his way he completed without issue."

"My husband…" Inko said, a look of surprise entering her face and temporarily doing away with the look of grief, "…Was a spy?"

Shrugging a bit, Homika said, "That's one way to put it, yes." Nodding a bit, Homika continued, "You see, Hisashi's latest job had him infiltrate a group of career thieves known for pulling off heists against incredibly wealthy individuals all over the world. Due to the gravity that this job carried, it was Hisashi's longest and most difficult job yet, but I had confidence that he would be able to carry it out as well as he did with all of his past jobs."

Her expression dropping a bit, Inko said, "I'm assuming that my husband was killed because the thieves group he infiltrated found out who he was?"

To the surprise of everyone in the room, Homika shook her head. "Surprisingly, no," the woman remarked, "The thieves never learned of Hisashi's true motives, never suspecting him of being anything other than just another one of them." Sighing in a resigned tone, Homika said, "You see, on the last night that he was alive, Hisashi and the thieves group he infiltrated were set to break into the home of a wealthy tycoon named Lord Tetherby."

"Oh, I actually heard of that guy," Hizashi said, making everyone turn to look at him. "No, seriously," the pro hero Present Mic said as he began to explain himself, "I saw this one news article on the internet earlier this morning before I came here for the day about Lord Tetherby. He lived over in some United States town called Royal Woods, located in Michigan. According to the article that I read, Tetherby was killed earlier this morning, which would be at night over there, when he tried to pull off some sort of scheme that would have been a total disaster for the Royal Woods area if it had gone off without a hitch. Luckily, a group from Konohagakure was in that area at the time and they stopped him."

Nodding in agreement, Homika said, "Yes, I'm well aware of what you're talking about. My organization was also looking into the suspicious activities that Lord Tetherby was up to, and it would have been disastrous if his plans came to fruition. Thankfully those shinobi were there, but I'm still going to have to get in contact with Konohagakure's current leader about some of his village's shinobi getting involved in the Tetherby incident. But that's getting off subject."

To Izuku and Inko, Homika said, "On the night that Hisashi was killed, he and the thieves group that he infiltrated broke into the Tetherby estate and raided a safe that, among other valuables, held an heirloom necklace belonging to the Tetherby family, with said necklace being worth as much as the Hope Diamond on the black market. Hisashi was supposed to send info about all of the thieves so that we could round them up and call Hisashi's job complete."

Sighing in a resigned tone, Homika went on, "Sadly, that's not the case. Hisashi and the group were caught and they were forced to flee with what they stole. As they fled, they were blindsided by an attack launched on them by a local fifteen-year-old quirked girl who was backing up some police officers that were in pursuit of them. In their efforts to try and capture all five of the men alive, the police officers ended up killing Hisashi and two of the thieves in a shootout, with the other two thieves surviving and being captured by the fifteen-year-old quirked girl. I was able to pick up that the police in question are currently under investigation to determine if they had acted with just cause or not, if that helps."

"My husband…" Inko said, few tears starting falling down the sides of her face, "…Was killed in a shootout with American police officers?"

Nodding in confirmation, Homika explained, "When word reached me from the local law enforcement over in Royal Woods about Hisashi's death, I quickly flew over there and went over a few things with the men over there. I was able to smooth over the appropriate feathers when I told the big wigs over there about Hisashi's true purpose over there and how he was working for me and my organization. You won't have to worry about any repercussions."

"Sorry to interrupt," Inko said when she raised a hand, "But you said that the girl who was backing up the police officers has a quirk. Do you know what kind of quirk it is?"

"I did get some info on that, but not much," Homika replied as she opened the folder that she was holding, "According to what we found out, the girl has a quirk that lets her manipulate earthen material. It's very similar to the quirk of Ryuko Tsuchikawa, also known as Pixie-Bob of the Wild, Wild Pussycats." Giving the Midoriyas a serious look, Homika replied, "There's just one thing about it."

Izuku, his curiosity about learning anything new related to quirks driving him forward, asked, "What is it?"

"The teen girl's earth manipulation quirk," Homika said, "From what I've been able to gather, is _vastly_ more powerful than that of Pixie Bob's. There's also one line of info that I got that claims that any earth manipulated by the girl's quirk is enveloped in a brilliant golden au-"

"Miss Virbank," Nezu said in his usual tone, albeit carrying a hint of firm, knowing stress, as he cut Homika off midsentence, "I firmly believe that the Hero Public Safety Commission and I have already told you that any information regarding what I believe about that teen girl's quirk is to stay on a need-to-know basis.

As he and Hizashi nodded in agreement with Nezu, Aizawa said, "Principal Nezu has a point, Homika. As much as I'm certain that Midoriya and his mother would appreciate knowing the full extent of what happened to their father and husband, _that_ specific info regarding the teen girl's quirk can't be spread around so easily."

Izuku and Inko were both surprised, as well as a bit confused, about Nezu, Aizawa and Hizashi being so secretive about all of the info that was available on the quirk of the teen girl. Izuku was especially curious, due to his nature of fan-boying over quirks of all kinds; he knows that the teen girl has some sort of earth manipulation quirk like Pixie-Bob's, only that it's apparently _vastly_ more powerful and that it had some sort of golden…something about it.

Izuku found his grief over losing his father to American police was being overridden at the moment by his curiosity to learn about the fifteen-year-old girl's quirk. What was this golden factor of the teen girl's earth manipulation quirk? Why were Principal Nezu and the U.A. teachers being as secretive about it? The green-eyed boy felt a burning need to get some answers for this mystery, wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in a burrito.

* * *

Since he and his mother had to make funeral arrangements for his father, Izuku was unable to talk to his friends and schoolmates for a few days. He also likewise had to put his search for answers about the teen girl's earth manipulation quirk with the golden factor on hold for the time being. However, Izuku got the chance that he was looking for during the funeral service for his father, which took place about a week after he and Inko learned that the head of their family was killed while on the job over in the United States. There was a post-service gathering where people who came to the service would be able to talk to one another, as well as offer their condolences to Izuku and Inko.

The gathering was a rather big one, too; of course Mitsuki and Bakugo were there, given how close they were to the Midoriyas. A few pro heroes were there as well; there was Ryuko Tatsuma and Yu, not to mention a few U.A. staff members such as Nemuri, Aizawa, Sekijiro and Hisashi. Izuku was really thrown for a loop when he saw Toshinori, who as we all know is _friggin_'_ ALL MIGHT_, had come to the funeral as well.

And the green-eyed boy was touched greatly when he saw how many of his schoolmates had come to offer their condolences. In addition to the aforementioned Bakugo, there was the rest of 1-A, as well as all of 1-B, Shinso, Mei and even the Big Three. Tamaki even brought a few boxes that Izuku was surprised (as well as touched) contained various baked goods, including a chocolate cake, a few dozen cookies where some where peanut butter and some were chocolate chip, some brownies, some (fairly big) muffins, and about a dozen or so rice puff marshmallow squares. Izuku was further surprised when he learned that Tamaki made _all of it_ himself.

"Yeah, Tamaki-sempai taught me a lot of the recipes that I have," Sato remarked casually.

After things began to wind down a bit at the post-service gathering, Izuku was looking around, hoping that the person that he wanted to talk to was still around. To his relief, the green-eyed boy spotted Juzo, the person that he wanted to talk to, talking to Shinso about something. Hoping that what little he knew would help to jog Juzo's memories, Izuku hoped that Juzo might be willing to help fill in a few blanks. Seeing that Juzo and Shinso were both secluded enough that he wouldn't have to worry about any of the pro heroes overhearing and butting in, Izuku figured that he would have enough time to get at least a few answers.

The green-haired cinnamon roll made his way over to Juzo and Shinso, getting their attention. "Oh Izuku, dude," Juzo greeted when he and Shinso turned to greet Izuku when they noticed that he was there, "Sorry again about your dad, man."

Nodding in thanks, Izuku replied, "Thanks, Juzo. My dad being killed still has my mom and I thrown for a loop." Sighing, Izuku said, "Juzo, there's something that I wanted to ask you about that girl that almost went ballistic on Ibara over in the United States during the recent filed trip you guys took."

"Umm, sorry but I told you everything," Juzo replied, looking a bit confused. Sighing in a resigned tone, Izuku proceeded to explain everything to Juzo and Shinso about what he gleamed from his and his mom's meeting with Nezu and that Homika woman. Izuku even pointed out how the secrecy that the pro heroes were observing about the teen girl with the very powerful earth manipulation quirk was rather suspicious.

Letting out a breath, Juzo said, "Hoo boy, that's a lot dude. Yeah, I can see how that would get anyone wanting to learn more." After he darted his eyes around to make sure none of the adults and pro heroes that were present would randomly decide to come over, Juzo said, "Izuku, Shinso, do you two both promise not to tell anyone about what I'm about to tell you?" Izuku and Shinso both nodded in the affirmative, swearing to keep what Juzo was about to tell them to themselves. The softening quirk boy let out a sigh before he began.

"About that teen girl's earth manipulation quirk having some sort of golden aspect," Juzo began, "I'm pretty sure that it's heavily related to the lightning quirk that the girl who almost throttled Ibara has, given how the teachers and various pro heroes are being so secretive about it. The lightning that the lightning quirk girl made was all a brilliant golden color. As for the teen girl's quirk, I'm guessing that its golden aspect is a golden aura that surrounds the earthen material that her quirk manipulates when she uses it."

"I would have to come to that conclusion as well," Shinso remarked, "Both quirks sound like they belong to a special group of emitter-type quirks, as they both involve manipulating elements to a ridiculous degree. The fact that both of them involve being golden in color further helps to drive home the theory that both of them are connected."

Izuku nodded in agreement as his mind began to swirl with everything that he had just gotten from Juzo's explanation, as well as Shinso contributing his two cents. Emitter-type quirks that are so powerful that they go beyond the pale of what Izuku and all of his schoolmates could even begin to comprehend, and that said emitter-type quirks are golden in color. But why are all of the teachers and other pro heroes being so secretive about all of this? You'd think that the reason that these golden emitter-type quirks are being kept secret because someone who has such a quirk would be so big a threat that not even a perfectly healthy All Might in the prime of his hero career would be able to stand up to them.

Izuku just had so many questions.

END, CHAPTER TWELVE

Author's notes;

For those of you who may have been wondering when Izuku and Inko were going to learn of Hisashi being killed in that shootout with police during the events of chapter nine (don't forget that I changed some of what happened, in case any of you were wondering what was going on), here you go. There was a little build up that I wanted to do before I wrote this chapter and got it out, including setting up the kind of relationship that started up between Inko and Bakugo; I'm certain that any grandson would have no issue being there for his grieving grandmother. Again, I'm sorry if any of you don't like what happened, but a lot of it is necessary for a lot of the plot for this story as a whole; you'll see what I mean when more of this story is released.

Speaking of buildup, this chapter has a lot of it for the last few chapters in this arc, as well as what's going to happen much later on in this story as a whole. But those later chapters will happen later on; even the last few chapters of this arc are going to have to wait, as I want to do the next chapter first, as that chapter will _also_ contain a few elements that will have an effect on not just the last few chapters of this arc, but also on a lot of this story's overall plot as a whole.

There's not a lot that I can say about next chapter, but I will say this; you know about how Uraraka's parents own that construction company of theirs, and that it's not doing so hot right now which in turn affects their lifestyle and how they're usually hurting for some scratch? Well, the Urarakas are about to get a much-needed hand with their business, all because their daughter is not only friends with a lot of heroes-in-training, but some pro heroes, a good number of which are in the top ten, decide to lend a hand as well. Also, yes. That includes Endeavor.

You'll see what I mean in the next chapter.


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter thirteen: The commercial for Uraraka Construction

"What the fuck happened here?!"

Enji Todoroki, who is also known as the current number one pro hero Endeavor, surprisingly flinched as he was being chewed out, shrinking down a bit and clearly humbled as if he were a young child that was being scolded over doing something that was greatly wrong. Then again, it did seem like that was indeed the case, even though the person who was giving the Flame Hero a tongue lashing just so happened to be his own son Shoto.

The youngest of the Todoroki siblings was clearly fuming at his father as the two of them, along with various law enforcement officials and a few pro heroes, stood outside in a moderately lower class neighborhood, where Endeavor had fought and defeated a trio of lesser villains that were trying to rob the houses in said neighborhood and otherwise be a terror. This fight between the trio of lesser villains and Endeavor is how Shoto knew where his father was.

The youngest of the Todoroki siblings saw a breaking news report on the TV in the common area of the class 1-A dorm building on U.A. grounds detailing how Endeavor was fighting a trio of villains in a lower class neighborhood. A live-action news cast where a reporter, with his camera man in a helicopter, flew over the area as the current number one pro hero fought that villain trio in that lower class neighborhood sometime around seven-thirty in the evening.

The quirks that each of the villains in that trio had, as well as Endeavor's own Hellflame, caused notable damage to about eighty percent of the houses in that neighborhood, with said damage being bad enough to a lot of those houses that seventy percent of that neighborhood's populace were left homeless; the fighting spread out over that much area. Now, this alone would have made Shoto lose a lot of the faith that he had in his father that had built up in recent events, due to Endeavor trying to change his ways and be a father that Shoto and his siblings could be proud of. However, there was one key factor about that fight that practically undid _all_ of the progress that Enji had managed to make with trying to regain his youngest son's trust/respect/love.

The lower-class neighborhood that the fight took place in? Yeah, it's the same neighborhood where the family of Shoto's crush, Reiko Yanagi of U.A.'s class 1-B, lives. Not only that, but Reiko's family is one of the families that lived in that neighborhood that was left homeless due to damage caused to their house by the wide-spread fight between that villain trio and Endeavor. Now, the fighting is over, Endeavor had successfully defeated the trio of villains, and saw them being loaded into the back of an armored police truck designed for transporting criminals and villains, then watched as the armored police truck took off straight to Tartarus Prison.

It was as the Flame Hero watched the armored police truck take off that he was approached by his son Shoto, who was accompanied by Izuku, Uraraka and Tenya. The youngest Todoroki told his father that he and his classmates saw the live footage of his fight against the trio of villains on the TV, and as they saw all of the damage being caused they recognized the neighborhood that the fight was taking place in. It was all of this that led up to Endeavor shrinking back like he was a young child being scolded.

As police and some of the pro heroes that were on scene were helping to round things up, the pro hero Ryukyu saw Endeavor and, knowing that he was the one who defeated the trio of villains that were robbing slash terrorizing the lower-class neighborhood, decided to go over and ask him about what happened. "Yo, Endeavor!" the Dragoon Hero called out, "You mind helping to fill in some of the details about-"

"How can you be so fucking reckless?!" Todoroki shouted angrily at his father, unknowingly cutting Ryukyu off midsentence making the current number one pro hero shrink back a little more, "Do you know how many people you left homeless because of how wildly you were fighting those villains?! Sure, the villains did some of the damage that left families here homeless themselves, but _you_ were the one responsible for the vast lion's share of that damage, especially since I saw on the live news report that none of the villains had any sort of fire quirk!" Surprised, as well as a little alarmed, to see Endeavor so easily cowed, Ryukyu slowly walked backwards away from the scene of the top pro hero being chewed out by his own son.

As Todoroki breathed heavily after he had finished his shouting at his father, Tenya placed a hand on his shoulder from behind, making the dual nature-quirked boy turn to see him. The class rep of 1-A had a sympathetic look on his face, an expression that upon seeing it made Todoroki calm down a bit and allow Tenya to gently guide him back to stand with Izuku and Uraraka as he himself stepped forward to speak with Endeavor.

"As…harsh as his words may have been, sir," Tenya began, "He does have a point about how your extreme recklessness and disregard for your surroundings in your efforts to capture that trio of villains have caused significant damage to this neighborhood and leaving a large portion of the residents here homeless. Not helping is the fact that this is a lower-class neighborhood, meaning that this was all that most of them could afford." Crossing his arms over his chest, Tenya said with a mildly firm look on his face, "With all due respect sir, I cannot imagine that this will look good for you."

Sighing in a resigned tone, which caught all of the teens by surprise especially Todoroki, Endeavor said in a humbled tone, "You kids are right. I allowed my zealousness and haste to defeat and capture those villains to overcome my better judgment, and because of how careless I was, I've stripped many families of the only homes that they could afford." Letting out another resigned sigh, Endeavor continued as he shrugged, "Well, it's a good thing that I have a lot of construction companies on speed dial."

"Construction companies?" Tenya repeated, both his tone and expression displaying curiosity.

Nodding in confirmation, Endeavor explained, "This…isn't the first time that one of the fights with villains that I was involved in resulted in property damage, with a lot of said damage being my responsibility. As such, I have a number of construction companies on speed dial." Gesturing to the teens, Endeavor went on, "You see, it's actually cheaper for me to hire those construction to repair all of the damage that my fights cause to people's homes and businesses than have the officials in the Commission pay to cover the damage."

"My father's got a point," Todoroki said, getting Izuku, Tenya and Uraraka to turn to look at him, "In fact, you'd be surprise to hear how effective this cheaper alternative of my father's is at keeping his agency from going into the red." Turning his gaze back to Endeavor, Todoroki's eyes became sharp and angry. "…That being said," the dual nature-quirked boy continued, the harshness of his tone's sudden shift leaving no room for arguing, "I can safely assume that you'll make sure Reiko's family's home is among the first to be repaired."

"Oh, that's right," Izuku said, tapping a fist into the palm of his hand, "Your crush's family lives in this neighborhood, don't they Todoroki?" The green-eyed boy received an affirmative nod from his friend.

Endeavor's expression, though still showing that the current number one pro hero was cowed, lit up a bit out of piqued curiosity. "…You have a crush, Shoto?" Endeavor asked.

Turning his head back to face his father, Todoroki replied, "Yes. And like I've already said, her family lives in this neighborhood. …Or rather they _lived_ here up until your recklessness resulted in their house being among the housed that was wrecked during the fight against those villains." Letting out a frustrated, exasperated sigh, Todoroki said, "I swear, if Reiko never forgives me for this, then _I'll_ never forgive _you_."

Endeavor, having just heard his youngest son admit that he may never forgive him, instantly became worried that not only was his progress in regaining his youngest son's trust/respect/love now reversed, but reversed to the point that Shoto will resent him forever. This was something that the Flame Hero, who truly wanted to earn his family's forgiveness and was trying to make up for all of the crap he had put them through over the years, wanted to avoid. It was during his bout of worry that Endeavor got an idea.

Taking a step up to his youngest, Endeavor said, "…Do you think that your crush would like to have a walk-in closet and a private bathroom?"

* * *

The following morning, crews from a number of construction companies were in the lower-class neighborhood, hard at work at cleaning up the damage so that the space was cleared for them to get to work at rebuilding the damaged homes. Over at what remained of the Yanagi house, the foreman of one of the crews stood next to a table that had been set up along the sidewalk outside of the damaged house, with some blueprints secured to the table's surface. Standing next to the foreman was Todoroki and Reiko.

While Todoroki was pointing to something on the blueprints, the foreman said, "Wait a minute, what do you mean I got the size of that bedroom wrong?"

"I mean that you got the size of this bedroom wrong," Todoroki explained in a casual tone, as if what he was talking about was one of the most obvious things in the world, "I distinctly recall that Reiko said that her bedroom was fifty percent bigger, and that it included a walk-in closet, plus a private bathroom with a toilet, double-sink and a shower stall."

"Actually, I want a bathtub," Reiko remarked, "I mean, the idea of getting to enjoy a nice soak after a long day at U.A. sounds pretty good."

Turning to face the foreman, Todoroki said in the same casual tone that he's been using, "Well, you heard the lady. Replace the shower stall with a bathtub." The foreman, with a completely baffled look that had a hint of being flabbergasted, merely shrugged indifferently, knowing that the requested modifications meant that his construction company would be able to charge more to the Endeavor Hero Agency for their services.

…

To the collective surprise of Todoroki and Reiko, the other nineteen students of class 1-A, along with Aizawa, all came to the lower-class neighborhood to see some of the construction that was going on. "Yeah, Todoroki," Aizawa began to explain, "The massive damage your father caused here, requiring all of this reconstruction, is part of something that I've been wanting to teach you and the others." Gesturing for Todoroki, as well as Reiko since she was there even though she's a student in 1-B, to join the other students, the underground hero began his lecture once all of the students were together.

"Listen up, brats," Aizawa began, "The fights that you'll get into with villains once you become pro heroes are bound to cause some amount of damage. What you kids ought to hope for is that you'll never cause enough damage during a fight with a villain that something like _this_-" Aizawa pauses to gesture to all of the various construction crews currently hard at work cleaning up all of the wreckage as well as starting a few reconstructions to damaged homes "-Won't happen. A big mess like this will undoubtedly cause-"

"Ochaco, sweetie! Is that you?" an adult woman's voice called out, cutting Aizawa off midsentence and making all of the U.A. students turn to see a woman who looks a little bit like Uraraka come over to them, accompanied by a man who was likewise happy to see Uraraka among the U.A. students that was in the lower-class neighborhood on the impromptu field trip to learn a lesson about pro heroes and property damage.

Giving the gravity girl a dry look, Aizawa pointed to the adult couple that came walking up and said, "These are your parents, aren't they Uraraka?"

Nodding in the affirmative, Uraraka replied, "Yeah, those are my parents."

"Well what are they doing here?" Aizawa asked.

"My parents own and run a construction company," Uraraka began to explain, "My guess is that their company was one of the ones hired by Todoroki's dad to help with all of the clean-up and rebuilding in this neighborhood."

Nodding in agreement, Uraraka's dad said, "That's right, Ochaco. You wouldn't believe how surprised your mother and I were when we were told by the Endeavor Hero Agency that our construction company was one of the ones that they were going to hire for the mass clean-up and reconstruction of this neighborhood."

"In fact," Uraraka's mom continued, "Your father and I are expecting a nice bonus since some boy with red and white hair told us to make some special modifications for one of the bedrooms in the one house that we're working on with a few of the other construction company crews."

"The mirror you put in my private bathroom above the sink better not make me look fat," Reiko remarked from where she stood in the group of 1-A students.

* * *

Due to how many crews from various construction companies were involved, the clean-up and reconstruction of the lower-class neighborhood was not only completed in record time, but the neighborhood looked much better, as if it ranked up to upper-middle-class, also the Endeavor Hero Agency was _still_ able to come in a bit under budget. The families were able to go back to their now fully-restored homes, many of which were way better than before.

The greatest example of this was the Yanagi residence, which went from a small single-story house that barely had enough space for a family of three to a large multi-story house, similar to the large house that Bakugo's mom kept thanks to the divorce settlement. It was so big that Reiko thought to celebrate by inviting all of her classmates in 1-B, as well as all of 1-A, over for a big house party. It wasn't just those forty who came, either; the Big Three, Mei and Shinso also came to the big party. Of course, everyone brought grindage and sodas, so there was no shortage of food and drink.

"It's like Itsuka and I have been saying this whole time," Juzo said as he was talking to Izuku, Shinso, Uraraka, Tenya, Tamaki and Todoroki over by the table where all of the pizza, sodas and other various party foodstuffs were placed, "Monoma has got to pull that yardstick out of his-"

"Hey, you guys!" Reiko's voice called out, cutting Juzo off midsentence and making him and the group that he was talking to turn to see Reiko come walking over to them. "Sorry for interrupting your talk here," the ghost girl began, "But I just wanted to thank Todoroki for getting his dad to shell out for rebuilding my family's house."

Smiling calmly, Todoroki replied, "I'm just glad that you and your family got our house back. Also thanks for not holding all of the damage my father caused in his fight with those villains against me."

"You aren't your dad, so why would I blame you for what he did?" Reiko replied, "By the way, I am loving my new bedroom. Not only is it much bigger, but the walk-in closet and the private bathroom are amazing."

"Oh, my parent's construction company handled your bedroom, Reiko," Uraraka explained.

"That reminds me, Uraraka," Todoroki said as he turned to face the gravity girl, "My father took a quick tour of all of the repaired houses here in this neighborhood, as he wanted to see the work that all of the construction companies his agency hired did. He was rather impressed with the work that your parents company did, more so than he was with any of the work done by any of the other companies."

Taken back a bit upon hearing that the current number one pro hero had a lot of praise for the work that her parents' construction company did, Uraraka went wide-eyed a bit. "R-really?" the gravity girl asked.

Nodding once in the affirmative, Todoroki went on, "My father asked me to ask you why your parents' company isn't as well-known as the others that his agency hired, as well as why their work took a bit longer than the work of the other companies, although my father did remark that he believes part of why your parents' work is so high-quality is because they must have taken their time with what they were doing."

Upon hearing her dual nature-quirked friend ask that question, Uraraka's expression fell a bit. "Oh, that," Uraraka began, her tone a bit subdued, "Well, my parents' company hasn't gotten a lot of work for a very long time, due to a mix of their quirks not being all that good for the job and that other companies that used quirked people to get jobs done quickly were competing with them." Her expression dropping a bit more, Uraraka continued, "In fact, part of the reason that I wanted to become a hero is so that I could help my parents out with their company, so that they wouldn't have to worry about expenses so much anymore."

The others that were listening to Uraraka's story felt sympathetic towards the gravity girl, sorry that she had such a rough going in life. A few of them even felt that what she had experienced growing up was unjustified, given that her parents' company did quality work that, compared to the work of the other companies that were hired by the Endeavor Hero Agency, outstripped all of the competition.

…But then again, due to a lack of their quirks being useful, Uraraka's parents were not able to do as much as competitors, which meant that they couldn't get as many jobs, and that leads to a lack of earning, which leads to a lack of being able to do things like advertise their business, and various other things that all go on to connect to the fact that because of all of their competitors spamming quirked people on the job, Uraraka's parents were quickly left in the dust.

And this did not sit well with everyone who was listening to Uraraka's story. "…I'm sorry, Uraraka," Izuku said as he tapped a fist into the palm of his hand, "But what you and your folks have been dealt is bullshit." Everyone who was there to hear the green-haired cinnamon roll speak were caught off guard by Izuku cursing like that, just right out of the blue. "They have one of, if not the, best construction companies that were among the lot that were hired by Todoroki's dad's agency for the mass reconstruction here. The fact that their company isn't getting the jobs and recognition that it deserve is complete and total bullshit."

"…Oh my god," Todoroki said, a look of total shock on his face, "Midoriya's being influenced by his girlfriend. That must explain why he's taken up cursing."

"Yeah, I'll admit that my vocabulary's been influenced a bit by Mitsuki," Izuku remarked, "But that's not the point, Todoroki." To the group he was talking to as a whole, the green-eyed boy said, "The point is that Uraraka's parents' company deserves better than what it's been getting. There's got to be something that we can do about it."

Sighing in a resigned tone, Uraraka said, "Thank you for caring so much about me and my family, Izuku. But even with what they were able to earn by working some of the construction in this neighborhood, there's no way my parents can afford to get their company's name out there. And even if they could, they won't be able to get a lot of work since their company lacks enough workers with quirks suited to the job." With a sad shrug, the gravity girl asked rhetorically, "I mean, who would hire such a company when there are so many other companies out there that are much better options?"

The group that was there listening looked around, many of them unsure what to say. The silence was broken when Reiko, surprisingly enough, stepped forward. "…Todoroki's dad was rather impressed with the work that your parents did," Reiko began to explain, "Maybe he can spread the word about the quality of your parents' work."

"Reiko actually has a point," Todoroki said, seeing what his crush was getting at, "After all, my father is Japan's current number one pro hero. He can make businesses either flounder or flourish just by giving his word about them." Crossing his arms over his chest, Todoroki continued, "In fact, the flower shop that my father went to in order to get flowers for my mother has seen a very significant boost in sales simply because my father went there a few times."

"The influence that a pro hero has," Tenya interjected, "Especially if said pro hero is one of the top ranked ones, can be a very powerful tool." The class 1-A rep's comment drew a lot of nods of agreement from the others in that group.

As Uraraka and the group she was talking to were going over this, Reiko suddenly said, "I got it!" With all eyes on her, the ghost girl said, "I know how we can draw attention to Uraraka's parents' company!"

Giving Reiko a curious look, Uraraka asked, "What do you have in mind, Reiko?"

* * *

The following afternoon, some of the 1-A and 1-B students were in Gym Gamma located on the grounds of U.A. At the request of the students, who explained what they were doing to the school staff, Nezu gave them his permission to use Gym Gamma for their plan. It wasn't just Gym Gamma that the students were using; they were also using a few places located outside of buildings as well. They even used a few places located outside of U.A. school grounds.

What was the plan, some may ask? Well, the students were working hard on producing a commercial for Uraraka's parents' construction company. Some of the students would be acting in the commercial, such as Izuku, Juzo and Shinso to name a few. Yaoyorozu helped by providing funding for the commercial (she _is_ rich, after all), and she used her quirk to produce materials for some sets, as well as the needed equipment such as cameras and other electronic devices used in filming. To help make sure that the commercial would be a success and bring as much business to Uraraka's parents' construction company as possible, a few of the students went about trying to get as many pro heroes on board with acting in the commercial.

The response from the pro heroes was…surprisingly positive, actually. Endeavor, when his youngest son told him about what he and his class/schoolmates were doing, agreed right away to lend what help was needed of him. In addition to scoring the current number one pro hero, the U.A. students also got Edgeshot, Ryukyu, Mirko, Kamui Woods, Gang Orca, Fat Gum, Mt. Lady, Uwabami, Gun Head and Fourth Kind to agree to take part. And that's just pro heroes who don't work as teachers at U.A.; Aizawa, Hizashi, Nemuri, Snipe, Sekijiro, Ryo and Higari all also offered to lend what help they could.

The only U.A. staff members that didn't offer to help were the ones that were truly busy thus were unavailable; Toshinori was also unable to offer his help, but the former symbol of peace had health reasons keeping him from doing what he would have otherwise agreed to do in a heartbeat. Even so, there was no doubt that the commercial, with so many pro heroes lending their time to help sell the commercial to viewers all over, would be a hit. This was especially so since five of the current top ten pro heroes, as well as Uwabami and Mt. Lady (both of which are really popular pro heroes right now) were taking part. Then the night that the commercial would first air on TV came…

…

"Well this is just great!" Edgeshot said as he stood on a street in a neighborhood, near what looked like a heavily damaged house outside of which Ryuko stood with Izuku, Shinso and Juzo (they were all dressed in casual/civilian outfits), "That fight with the villain that I just defeated not only caused a lot of damage to this residential neighborhood, but the house where my fiancé lives with her fifteen-year-old sons that are triplets was completely wrecked! Now where will they and everyone else whose homes were damaged live?"

"It sounds like you need someone to rebuild everything for you!" a strong masculine voice called out, making Edgeshot turn his head and see Endeavor come walking up to him.

"Endeavor!" Edgeshot exclaimed, sounding sort of like he was clearly acting.

Gesturing to Edgeshot, Endeavor said while also sort of sounding like he was acting, "If you're looking for someone to do repair work on all of the homes that were damaged, then may I be so bold as to recommend Uraraka Construction?"

"Uraraka construction, you say?" Edgeshot replied in his sort-of acting tone, sounding like Endeavor's suggestion piqued his interest.

The commercial then went through a few scenes, such as Uwabami talking to Uraraka's dad seemingly trying to hire his and his wife's company for a job, and Mt. Lady standing outside of a fully-constructed building with Uraraka's mom; the gigantification hero hopped up and down in excitement right before throwing her arms around Uraraka's mom to drag her into a hug. As all of these scenes played out in the commercial, the voice of Rumi (A.K.A Mirko) talked as a sort of narration.

"Here at Uraraka Construction," Rumi's voice said, "We offer quality work on construction and repair jobs, with prices that competitors simply cannot beat."

The commercial then shifted to a scene where Aizawa was standing alone outside of a house in a neighborhood area somewhere. "Uraraka Construction did amazing work building the addition to my house so that my foster daughter now has a proper bedroom," Aizawa said. He then hopped up while spinning his forearms over each other, and when he landed he made some sort of pose that was reminiscent of martial artists in classic kung-fu movies.

The commercial then shifted to one final shot of the outside of the building that Uraraka's parents had for their company's office. "Uraraka Construction," Rumi's voice said as the scene showed off the office building for the company, "Where hopes and homes are rebuilt."

As the commercial lingered on that shot of the outside of Uraraka Construction, Hizashi's voice somewhat quickly said, "Uraraka Construction is one-hundred percent endorsed by the following pro heroes." Suddenly, the hero names of _every_ pro hero who agreed to lend their help to the commercial one way or another appeared on screen in very quick succession, with the each name appearance accompanied by a loud banging sound, similar to a gunshot.

* * *

After that, the screen in the U.A. faculty lounge went off, as Hizashi had turned the TV off with the remote. Turning around, he looked at all of the other U.A. staff members that were in the lounge to watch the first airing of the commercial for Uraraka Construction; this included the staff members that took part in the commercial, and those that didn't for various reasons. "So," the pro hero Present Mic began in a tone making it clear he wanted everyone's thoughts as he pointed to the now turned off TV, "What do you guys think?"

"That commercial was simply marvelous," Nezu said sincerely, even clapping a bit in applause, "And I have no doubt that it will help bring a lot of much-needed business to Miss Uraraka's family's business."

"You know, Uraraka's parents' construction company really _did_ build the addition to my house that gave Eri a proper bedroom," Aizawa remarked. With a bemused look on his face, Aizawa added, "Although _why_ I allowed Kaminari to talk me into doing that little jump and pose bit in the commercial truly escapes me."

Placing a hand on Aizawa's right shoulder, Toshinori said, "Well what can you do, Aizawa? The kids are just that full of energy." Removing his hand from the underground hero's shoulder, the former symbol of peace remarked in a proud tone, "Not to mention compassion for their fellow heroes-in-training. I knew that they had each other's backs, but to think that they would all go to such lengths to help out Young Uraraka and her family…" Toshinori closed his eyes, calmly inhaled and exhaled through his nose. "…It really gets me right here, you know?" Toshinori said as he gently patted his chest over where his heart was.

Aizawa, as well as the other U.A. staff members in the faculty lounge at the time, all nodded in agreement. To think that not only did so many of U.A.'s students went so far for the sake of Uraraka and her parents, but that they were able to get a notable number of pro heroes to do the same as well. Such an act only served to reaffirm the faith that many of the staff members, most of all Toshinori, had in the future generation of heroes.

* * *

A well-dressed young man in his very early twenties was rushing through the hallway of a truly opulent building somewhere, a panicked look on his face as he held a vanilla folder. Eventually, the young adult man reached a tall double-doors that was in approximately the center of the wall in the hallway he was in.

The young adult man pushed the double-doors open and rushed inside of the room, which turned out to be an office so opulent that would even put the one Endeavor has over at his agency building to shame. "Sir!" the young adult man called out, his tone showing that what he had to say was of great importance and interest. The young adult man's call made the tall-backed swivel chair behind the large ornate oak desk near the back of the office turn around.

The man sitting in that chair, clearly an extraordinarily wealthy businessman, merely arched an eyebrow, his interest piqued by the young adult man's actions. Running up to the wealthy man's desk, the young adult man laid the vanilla folder down, opened it and showed the wealthy man all of the papers that were inside. "Your monopoly on the construction companies was just dealt a very serious blow, sir," the young adult man said in a regretful tone, "Some nobody backwater construction company, called Uraraka Construction, just took a vast lion's share of the jobs that the construction companies under your umbrella would have otherwise received."

"I…" the wealthy man began, the barest hint of strain and annoyance in his tone, "…Am aware of this. I saw that commercial that Uraraka Construction just put out. To be quite honest, I have no clue how or why so many pro heroes would lend their names to some nobody company."

"What do you plan to do about it, sir?" the young adult man asked, concern clear on his face.

The wealthy man looked from the young adult man, then to the papers from the vanilla folder, then back to the young adult man; the wealthy man kept up this back and forth for a few seconds before his dry, knowing gaze fell back to the young adult man. "…Well isn't it obvious?" the wealthy man said, sounding like he was stating something more than actually asking something, "I'm going to have to…send Uraraka Construction a message."

END, CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Author's notes;

And there we go. Thanks to the efforts of the U.A. students in making that commercial, as well as the various pro heroes lending their names to help give the commercial's selling power some much-needed 'oomph', Uraraka's parents' construction company will be seeing a very large boost in business, which in turn means a very big boost in income for Uraraka and her parents. But what's this? A wealthy businessman is not fond of Uraraka Construction breaking his total monopoly on the construction company business? What could this entail? Keep an eye out for future chapters to find out more.

Speaking of chapters, this one here has kicked off a number of points that will have a huge role in this story as a whole; expect what happened here to have a lot of prominence for a good number of arcs to come. Anyway, the next chapter will _also_ see a few things established that will have impacts on the story as a whole; to give you all fair warning, one or two things will probably be points of contention, but they are all very much necessary to the specific kind of story that I am trying to tell here. All will be explained, and there is even a point or two necessary to kick start a specific sub-plot for Mineta. You'll see what I mean later.


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter fourteen: The field trip part one: Gold of the Sacred Heritage

One well enough afternoon over at the Heights Alliance dorm building located on U.A. grounds, Izuku Midoriya was in his dorm room, using his computer to look something up. The green-eyed boy, his curiosity and wonder driving him, was looking into a certain matter, a matter that he and his fellow U.A. students were explicitly told by Aizawa-sensei and various other teachers to NOT look into. But Izuku could not help himself; he just _had_ to know about what it was that the teachers and other U.A. staff members were going through such lengths to keep on the low and low from him and the other students.

Very recently, the rival class of Izuku's class 1-A, that rival class being 1-B, had gone on an international field trip over to the United States, to a town in Michigan called Royal Woods. While there, 1-B student Ibara Shiozaki did something to prompt a local girl to fly into a berserker Viking rage. Luckily for Ibara and her classmates, they all ran away before the local girl could attack any of them. Izuku was also able to gather that the local girl wielded a four-iron golf club as a weapon, but that was not had Izuku's attention.

No, Izuku's wonder came from what he was able to gather about the local girl's lightning quirk which, what Izuku was able to get from his friend in 1-B Juzo, made _golden_ lightning rather than regular lightning. Izuku also reached the conclusion that the earth manipulation quirk used by the teen girl that was with the police who killed his father Hisashi was heavily connected to the local girl's golden lightning quirk, as any earthen material manipulated by the teen girl's quirk is enveloped in a brilliant aura of gold. The green-eyed boy could not help but wonder just what was it about these two quirks, which sounded to him to belong to some special group of insanely powerful emitter-type quirks, that made the U.A. staff members be so secretive about them.

Hence why Izuku was trying to do research on them. To his mild frustration, Izuku was getting very little on what he's dubbing the 'golden emitter-type quirks'. During the green-eyed boy's research on the subject, he found an online article that was, surprisingly, written by Todoroki's dad Endeavor, and it went on about fire quirks that made flames of various colors, such as the blue flames made by the Cremation quirk belonging to the currently-at-large villain Dabi, as well as the black flames produced by the Hellfire quirk belong to Akuma Giratina of Vulcan High.

It was to Izuku's piqued interest, as well as some elated relief on his part, that said article written by Endeavor had a single line that said something about a late teens/very young adult male living in the United States, just so happening to live in Royal Woods, the very Michigan town that the 1-B students had their field trip at. According to Endeavor's words on the matter, this late-teens boy has a quirk that lets him conjure and manipulate golden fire. The current number one pro hero also says in his article that this golden fire quirk is far stronger than any other fire quirk that is out there.

However, this was all that Izuku could get on the 'golden emitter-type quirks' out of Endeavor's article; less than one-hundred words total, actually. Even so, Izuku added what he found to yet another one of his hero analysis notebooks, a new one he had prepared just to specifically hold any and all info that he could gather on the 'golden emitter-type quirks'; the notebook also had what Izuku was able to gather on the local girl's golden lightning quirk and the teen girl's golden earth manipulation quirk.

With what he got on the golden fire quirk added to his notebook, Izuku tried a different approach; since all three of the people who had these special quirks all lived in the same town in the United States, Izuku decided to do some research on that specific town. Thusly, Izuku got cracking on researching Royal Woods, Michigan. During his scanning of various news articles that denoted various happenings over in that town, Izuku came across one that got his interest, as it related to his 'golden emitter-type quirks' notebook;

_Local high school students saves Royal Woods from sewage catastrophe_

_Bobby Santiago and Aggro Ace, two twelfth-grade boys currently attending Royal Woods High School, are credited with defeating Brandon McCann, who was plotting to kick start a massive criminal enterprise that would have otherwise resulted in mass crime and hysteria here in Royal Woods. When Mr. McCann tried to turn on a massive machine that would have used sewage from the sewage treatment plant he worked at to create a city-wide sewage mess that would have caused wide-spread damage that would have distracted local quirked heroes, Bobby and Aggro stopped the machine by destroying it before it could be used._

_While Mr. McCann was being loaded into the back of a police van after he was defeated and arrested, local news and other media tried to get an interview with the heroic twelfth graders, but both were unavailable. One field reporter working for Royal Woods's local news station was able to get a few bits out of Ronnie Anne Santiago, the fifth grader younger sister of Bobby. From what the young Latina girl mentioned, her older brother used his quirk, which lets him conjure and manipulate golden winds, to fight against the now arrested Mr. McCann; similarly, Aggro used his quirk, which lets him conjure and manipulate golden fire, to assist Bobby in putting a stop to the plottings of Mr. McCann before they could be carried out._

_Right before she was escorted away by her and Bobby's mother Maria, Ronnie Anne mentioned that both her brother's and Mr. Ace's quirks are something called Sacred Heritage quirks. But when the reporter tried to press Maria and her daughter for further information, the reporter was told by Maria to back off, as she is not fond of the idea of any of her children being hounded by the media looking for a scoop._

Izuku's eyes widened a bit as he not only read that article the first time, but scanned it again a few more in order to get what he could. The green-haired cinnamon roll now had a name to attach to the golden fire quirk, as well as a golden wind quirk and a name to attach to that; Izuku also found a profile picture of Aggro Ace, the twelfth grade boy with the golden fire quirk. He had long platinum blonde hair in a men's ponytail, save for face-framing bangs, and he seemed to possess some degree of Asian heritage. Izuku saved that picture to a file he had on a flash drive that was in his computer at the moment.

Izuku also had something else of note to add; that the 'golden emitter-type quirks' were referred to as Sacred Heritage quirks. Izuku would have gone on with his attempt to research what he now knows are called Sacred Heritage quirks, but he was brought out of his focus when he heard a knock at his dorm room door. "Excuse me, Midoriya!" the voice of Tenya called out, "But Todoroki, Uraraka and I need you to come with us! We're going to ask Aizawa-sensei for more on the field trip that we're taking to the United States in two days!"

The green-eyed boy remembered what his speedy friend was talking about; similar to class 1-B before them, class 1-A was not only going on an international field trip, but they were, in fact, going to Royal Woods, Michigan. The very town in which all of class 1-B was very nearly throttled by a local girl with a golden lightning quirk because she was set off by an unknowing Ibara. The same town where Izuku's late dad was killed by police that were backed up by that golden earth quirk girl. Izuku couldn't have asked for a better town in the United States for him and his classmates to take their field trip to, as it had all of the answers that he wanted.

* * *

A few minutes later, Izuku was walking alongside Tenya, Uraraka and Todoroki as they made their way to the teacher's lounge in the main school building. Not wanting to raise any suspicion from any of his friends about how he was secretly going against the direct orders of the teachers but still not able to help but say at least something, Izuku was deciding to try and ease things in bit by bit. "Hey, Todoroki," Izuku began, "I found this one article online that your father wrote apparently. He basically talks about how various fire quirks can produce various colors."

"Ah yes, I'm familiar with that article," Todoroki remarked, "My older sister Fuyumi had me read it at one point." With a gentle shake of his head, the dual-nature quirked boy continued, "I'm still impressed that my father has as much as he does on that villain bastard Dabi, as well as that Akuma fellow that Bakugo defeated during the U.A. versus Vulcan tournament." Suddenly, a look of passing wonder flashed across Todoroki's face. "…I'm also surprised that my father would openly talk for even a second about Sacred Heritage quirks," Todoroki remarked.

Izuku, Tenya and Uraraka paused as they all looked at their friend with the multi-colored hair, none more so than Izuku. The green-eyed boy would have asked what Todoroki was talking about, but Uraraka beat him to the punch. "Umm, Todoroki," the gravity girl began in a curious tone, "But what do you mean by 'Sacred Heritage' quirks?"

Turning to face Uraraka and the boys, Todoroki would have explained, but he was cut off when the familiar voice of Toshinori, aka All Might called out. "Ah, Midoriya my boy," the former symbol of peace said, "There you are. I was actually looking for you."

Izuku perked up when Toshinori mentioned that he was looking for him; despite Toshinori being retired and essentially quirkless, the green-eyed boy still saw Toshinori as All Might, the end all be all of heroes. Why _else_ would he still keep all of that All Might merch around his dorm room, making the room into what's more a less a shrine to All Might?

"Is something up, All Might?" Izuku asked, his tone showing his curiosity was piqued.

Gesturing to Izuku, Toshinori replied, "I just wanted to give you a few tips for your class's upcoming field trip over to the United States. From what Aizawa told me, he and Hizashi plus two more adults are going to be the chaperones for 1-A as the lot of you go to a town in the state of Michigan called Royal Woods."

"That's right, sir," Tenya remarked to the former number one pro hero, "I later got it from Hizashi-sensei that the other two adult chaperones that he and Aizawa-sensei managed to get are Izuku's mother and Bakugo's mother."

Toshinori nodded in acknowledgement to Tenya before turning his attention back to the green-haired cinnamon roll. "I just wanted to give you a few tips on what to expect, as well as try out," Toshinori said, "From what some of Sekijiro's boys in his class said, there's this pizza place slash arcade that's really-"

"Umm, All Might," Izuku interrupted, sounding a bit nervous, "There was something that I was hoping to ask you about, too." This caught Toshinori off guard, as well as pique not just his but Todoroki's, Tenya's and Uraraka's interest as well. "I don't suppose that there's someplace where we can talk privately, is there?" Izuku asked.

Toshinori could tell by his protégé's tone that the matter that he wished to discuss was a rather serious one. Nodding once in agreement, Toshinori gestured for Izuku to follow him, "The teacher's lounge should be sufficient, Young Midoriya," Toshinori remarked, "It will do for now." Izuku nodded once in thanks as he followed the former symbol of peace to the teacher's lounge. Izuku's friends followed along closely, but had to wait outside the lounge until Izuku was done talking to All Might.

* * *

When Izuku and Toshinori arrived at the teacher's lounge, the only person in there was little Eri, who was fast asleep in a plush leather armchair that was in the lounge. Looking over at the little horned girl, Toshinori breathed a sigh of relief. "_Aizawa will no doubt be by later to collect her_," Toshinori thought to himself, thankful that the little girl was asleep for what he suspected was a rather serious talk that his protégé wanted to have.

Turning to face said protégé, Toshinori asked, "So, Midoriya my boy, what is it that you wanted to ask me about, hmm?"

Izuku knew that there was no beating around the bush on this one, so he figured that he might as well come out and say it. "All Might," the green-haired cinnamon roll began, "Do you know what Sacred Heritage quirks are?"

Instantly, the former symbol of peace's eyes widened in alarm and shock. He even sputtered out a bit of blood, he was that caught off guard by Izuku's question. Once he had regained as much of his composure as he could, Toshinori said in as serious of a tone as he could manage, "Young man, how did you find out about that? It's not something that can be so readily discussed in the open, which is why I'm glad this room is soundproofed."

"I was researching quirks," Izuku began slash mildly lied; he's a quirk fan boy so he's always researching quirks for real, but he was using that beginning to sound believable. "I found an online article written by Todoroki's dad, in which he talks about fire quirks that produce flames of varying colors," Izuku went on, "And there was one or two lines about some late-teens boy who has a golden fire quirk." Toshinori's eyes narrowed a bit in suspicion, a sign that he had a topic of discussion later when he found (i.e. got ahold of) Endeavor. However, Toshinori decided to let his protégé continue.

"Related to what I read about the late-teens boy and his golden fire quirk," the green-eyed boy went on, "I found another news article about an incident in the town that my class and I are going to on our field trip, in which the golden fire quirk guy and another guy who has a golden wind quirk stopped some vile plan a local man was going to set into motion. There was one line in that article in which the golden wind guy's younger sister said that the golden quirks are called Sacred Heritage quirks."

Toshinori let out a resigned sigh before looking Izuku right in the eyes. "…My boy," Toshinori began, "I suppose that it was inevitable that you or one of the other kids would find out about this. However, let me first be clear that what I am about to tell you must _**NEVER**_ leave this room. What information that we here at U.A. have on Sacred Heritage quirks is guarded more closely than All For One over in Tartarus prison. Can I trust you to guard what I am about to tell you with your life, to say nothing on the matter to anyone barring situations that are _literally_ life or death?"

Izuku was a bit surprised to hear just how seriously the teachers of U.A., all of which were respected pro heroes, took this matter, especially since All Might just said the matter is guarded more closely than All For One, that most despicable villain and All Might's greatest arch nemesis of all time. Even with all of his building nerves over the subject, Izuku nodded once to show that he was ready and willing to hear what All Might had to say, agreeing to whatever he had to in order to learn it.

Letting out a resigned sigh, Toshinori said, "Very well. First off, Sacred Heritage quirks are a special group of extremely rare and extremely powerful emitter-type quirks that all involve manipulating elements such as earth, wind and fire. All elements manipulated in this manner are a brilliant, shining gold in color, although in the case of the earth one, a brilliant golden aura surrounds the manipulated earth." Letting out another resigned sigh, the former symbol of peace said, "On…the subject of the earth Sacred Heritage quirk, the person who has it is the same girl that was helping the police in the incident where an officer killed your father in a shootout."

"_Well that at least confirms one thing I was wondering about_," Izuku thought, having just received confirmation that his suspicions about the earth manipulation quirk girl's involvement in his father's death. Even so, he was not done, so he allowed All Might to go on.

Gesturing to Izuku, Toshinori continued, "Sacred Heritage quirks are also all themed around certain countries slash cultures slash peoples. For example, the fire Sacred Heritage quirk that you mentioned…" Letting out a regular sigh this time, Toshinori said, "I actually happen to have a bit of info on it. It is called Amaterasu. It's a fire-attribute Japanese Sacred Heritage quirk." Izuku's eyes widened upon hearing that the gold fire quirk apparently drew much of itself from Japan, the very country that he and everyone else he knows lives in.

With a nod, Toshinori continued, "I don't have the name of the earth Sacred Heritage quirk, but the other teachers here and I do know that it is a Native American Sacred Heritage quirk." Looking up at the ceiling, the former symbol of peace let out a sigh. "Sacred Heritage quirks…" Toshinori said, "…They more than just represent various heritages. They draw strength from them. The lands, the cultures, the very people. To go against one is to go against all that they draw strength from." Giving his protégé a knowing look, Toshinori said, "You wouldn't want to go up against all of Japan on your own, do you my boy?"

A headshake in the negative from Izuku drew a knowing and approving smile from All Might. "There's something else to know about Sacred Heritage quirks, as well as their users," Toshinori said, "Any and all methods that you can think of to try to combat them can _and will_ fail to do so. Aizawa's quirk can't erase them, your schoolmate Monoma's quirk can't copy them, that horrific Quirk-Destroying drug will have absolutely no effect on them…" Gently shaking his head, Toshinori added, "…Sacred Heritage quirks even can't be stolen by All For One." Giving his protégé a serious look, Toshinori said, "And those are just a few examples."

Izuku's eyes widened a bit by what he had just been told. It's bad enough that these Sacred Heritage quirks are apparently so powerful that it's part of why the U.A. teachers and staff are so secretive about them. But to hear that there are so many methods that will fail to do a damn thing to combat them in any capacity? Izuku shuddered at the thought of so powerful a group of quirks being out there. He also shuddered at the thought of just how exactly All Might came by all the information on what doesn't work to stop Sacred Heritage quirks and their users.

Which left Izuku with a question that he had to ask. "All Might," Izuku said, "Is there anything that _can_ stop a Sacred Heritage quirk user?"

"There's only one method that I can think of off the top of my head right now," the former symbol of peace began, "Just plain don't start anything with Sacred Heritage quirk users." Letting out a resigned sigh, Toshinori said, "I'm not sure how Aizawa and Sekijiro will respond to me telling you about this, but in regards to the girl who almost went ballistic on class 1-B because of Young Miss Shiozaki, her lightning quirk is _also_ a Sacred Heritage quirk."

"_I should have figured_," Izuku thought as he continued to listen to All Might.

Gesturing to Izuku, Toshinori said, "We also have a bit of info on that quirk, thanks partly to what your schoolmates were able to see before they all ran away before they could get hurt. The quirk is called Thunder God. It's a lightning-attribute Scandinavian Sacred Heritage quirk. I don't exactly remember the girl's name off the top of my head, but from what I got from Sekijiro, the girl embodies the Viking history that runs deep in half of her heritage." Letting out a sigh, the former symbol of peace said, "The girl's attempt to attack 1-B was inspired by her feeling that her pagan beliefs were being attacked by Young Miss Shiozaki."

With a mildly troubled look, Izuku said, "Umm, yeah. I did hear that Ibara had something to do with how her and her classmates were almost throttled during their field trip."

Nodding in confirmation, Toshinori said, "In Young Shiozaki's defense, she had no idea that her expressing her devotion to Christianity would have elicited such a negative reaction out of the girl, who was likewise made to acknowledge that she had indeed overreacted."

"Wait!" Izuku said suddenly, getting All Might's attention, "That girl who almost attacked 1-B." With a worried look on his face, Izuku said, "If either Todoroki and or Kacchan were to find out about her, then what can stop either of them from going after her to get revenge, especially if they decide to team up to get revenge on her together? After all, both Reiko and Pony are in 1-B, and they were both almost attacked. Todoroki is in love with Reiko, and Kacchan is in love with Pony." Gently shaking his head, the green-eyed cinnamon roll said, "I have no doubt that they would not just sit around while the person who had almost attacked their respective crushes is in the same town we're taking a field trip to."

Toshinori looked like he was giving the notion some thought. "…It would be troublesome if Young Todoroki and Young Bakugo were to learn of the girl, yes," Toshinori remarked, "Love can make kids your age do all manner of crazy things, including trying to take on a person with a Sacred Heritage quirk." To Izuku, Toshinori said, "All that we can hope is that neither of them finds out, much less considers trying to look into the matter if either of them remember what almost happened to 1-B during their field trip to Royal Woods."

Izuku agreed, and even promised not to tell Todoroki and/or Bakugo about what he and All Might had just discussed. They covered a few more points before Izuku got everything that he was looking for and then some. After that, Izuku thanked All Might for his time, promised not to say a word on what they had discussed to anyone, and took his leave.

…

Outside of the teacher's lounge, Izuku was met up by Uraraka, Todoroki and Tenya. "What did you and All Might talk about, Midoriya?" Tenya asked.

"My guess," Todoroki said, "Is that Midoriya was asking his dad for advice on how to do well while dating Mrs. Bakugo." With a nod, the dual nature-quirked boy remarked, "Midoriya _is_ All Might's secret love child, after all."

"I…" Izuku said, "…Just wanted some tips on places to check out while we're on our field trip to Royal Woods, is all."

Izuku's friends, to the green-eyed boy's relief, all bought what he said. "Yeah, I kind of want to check out this one place that your friend Juzo talked about called Gus' Game n Grub," Uraraka said to Izuku, "I want to try out what American pizza is like."

Izuku smiled in relief when what Uraraka mentioned got Todoroki and Tenya talking, their interest piqued by the concept of trying American cuisine. Nodding in agreement with the gravity girl, Izuku said, "Yeah, Uraraka. I kind of want to try some of the food in America as well when we get there."

* * *

A few days passed with all of 1-A buzzing a bit in excitement about going on an international field trip. Some of the students were able to cover themselves in terms of costs for plane tickets, but the rest of them had to rely on a mix of U.A. and their classmate Yaoyorozu paying their way for them, the school because it was sending them on the field trip and Yaoyorozu because rich.

One such example of a student having to rely on someone covering costs for her is Uraraka; even though her family is now doing loads better money wise thanks to that commercial that 1-A, 1-B, the Big Three, Shinso, Mei and various pro heroes helped with, things were still a bit tight for the gravity girl here and there. But things as a whole were looking much better for her. At the very least, Uraraka can cover getting herself a nice souvenir during the field trip.

Either way, the big day came, and after a long flight over the Pacific Ocean, the students of U.A. High School's class 1-A finally arrived in the United States. As the twenty of them all entered the lobby of Royal Woods International Airport, they were given instructions by their teacher Aizawa, who stood next to Hizashi, Inko and Mitsuki. Eraserhead, Present Mic, Izuku's mother and Bakugo's mother/Izuku's girlfriend were the adult chaperones for the 1-A students on their field trip to the States.

"Like Sekijiro and his brats before us," Aizawa began as he addressed his homeroom class, "We're here to check out Royal Woods, Michigan, a surprisingly historically significant town in the United States."

"Luckily for us," Hizashi went on, "All of us know enough English to do basic things here. However, for more complicated matters, you kids can turn to either me or Aizawa, or your classmates Yaoyorozu, Todoroki, Iida and Midoriya, if what I got on all of them being fluent in English is true." The four students mentioned by Hizashi all nodded in the affirmative, showing that the very loud pro hero got it right.

After a few more topics were covered, the 1-A students and the adult chaperones all went about checking out what Royal Woods had to offer. Some were excited to see the sights, Sato wanted to try some local sweets, some of the girls wanted to go to the local mall to do some shopping, and various other things that tourists such as them wanted to do while in a foreign country.

* * *

Minoru Mineta, thinking with his lower horn as he always does, wanted to scope out some 'hot American babes' as he put it. The infamous pervert of class 1-A had an appreciation for foreign girls, viewing their being foreign as adding a dash of exoticness to their overall appeal. Mineta thought, because of this, that his classmate Bakugo had good tastes in girls, as the explosive teen was aiming to scoop up Pony Tsunotori of class 1-B.

"I had no idea that Bakugo appreciated the finer things," Mineta remarked aloud to himself as he wandered the streets of Royal Woods a few blocks from the hotel that he and the rest of the field trip were staying at. There was no need for alarm, as Royal Woods had a very low crime rate when compared to the United States as a whole; the infamous pervert also knew enough English to carry out his plans to 'scoop up some hot American babes'.

And find such a babe Mineta did; the short-statured boy spotted a girl who looked to be between sixteen and seventeen. This girl had fair skin, yellow-blonde hair that reached a little bit down her shoulders, and wore a green sleeveless dress that reached about halfway down her thighs, a pair of sandals, small red hoop earrings, and a pair of white-frame sunglasses (over her head). She had a cute purse that matched her dress's color with her, its strap over her right shoulder.

Strutting over to this girl, Mineta got her attention before he started flirting with her. "(Hey babe,)" Mineta said in English, "(Is it hot in here, or is it just you?)"

"(In here?)" the blonde girl replied in a confused tone, "(But we're outside. How can we, like, be 'in here' if we're actually outside?)"

"_Great, the first cute chick I find in the States, and she'd dimmer than Bakugo's idiots,_" Mineta thought in mild annoyance. Not wanting to give up in potentially scoring a hot foreign girlfriend, the infamous pervert continued. "(No, that's not exactly what I meant,)" Mineta clarified for the blonde girl in English, "(What I really meant was that I was calling you hot.)"

Once again, the local girl looked confused. "(I'm hot? Why? Am I on fire?)" the blonde girl asked, looking like she was mildly panicking, "(Do I have a burn somewhere?!)" As the blonde girl looked over all of herself in a panic, Mineta mildly face palmed mentally. Sure, this girl was a few picnics short of a sandwich, but dumb girls were easier to work with (i.e. trick) for Mineta than girls of higher intelligence levels.

Gesturing for the local girl to stop, Mineta said, "(When I called you hot, I meant it in a way to call you attractive. I'm saying that you're really cute.)" The infamous pervert hoped that his explanation, which he made as simple and understandable as he could manage given what little English he knew, would be simple enough for the local girl that he was trying to flirt with to understand. Thankfully, the local girl seemed to get it.

"(Oh, so you're saying that I'm, like, pretty?)" the local girl asked, getting a nod in the affirmative from Mineta. The local girl giggled a bit and replied, "(Aww, thanks! My boyfriend thinks that I'm really pretty, too!)"

"_Damn it, she's taken,_" Mineta thought upon hearing the reveal that the local girl he's flirting with was already dating someone. However, Mineta figured that the local girl's obvious lacking of intelligence, coupled with him (Mineta) being foreign thus having an exotic appeal, would let him work around this.

Clearing his throat a bit, the infamous pervert said, "(You know, I'm actually here on a field trip from my home country of Japan. I have no idea how things work here in the States, and I was hoping that you could show me around a bit. At least until I get the hang of things.)"

The local girl's face lit up a bit. "(Oh, did you just say that you're, like, Japanese?)" the local girl asked, "(That's really weird! My boyfriend is half-Japanese himself! He even taught Linky how to speak in that beautiful language that he talks in!)"

Mineta scowled inwardly at the repeated mention of this local girl he's trying to flirt with having a boyfriend. The infamous pervert also had no idea who this 'Linky' person the local girl speaks of is, but he disregarded that as a non-factor. Gesturing to the local girl, Mineta said, "(Well it's clear that you have some familiarity with-)"

*HOOOOOONNNK*

Both Mineta and the local girl were startled, as well as Mineta being cut off midsentence, when a large shipping truck drove through that part of the residential area a few blocks from the hotel that 1-A was staying at. Not only that, but both Mineta and the local girl were standing in the street at the time, so they both had to jump onto the sidewalk in order to avoid the truck.

After the truck had passed by the local girl, she let out a sigh of relief. "(Wow, that was, like, totes scary,)" the local girl remarked aloud, "(I wonder how that short guy with the purple balls for hair is doing, because I can't see him anywhere. Also, why does it feel like that there's something, like, heavy covering my butt?)" The local girl turned her head to look over her back and down to her rear end, and not only did she get her answer to her question, but she also got an answer to what happened to Mineta.

The short-statured boy was gripping to the back of the local girl's dress, his body covering the local girl's rear end and lower back area. He also used a few of his sticky balls to help him keep his hold. "(Wow, who knew that American girls were so well built?)" Mineta remarked, his dopey tone and facial blushing both showing his true perverted nature, "(No wonder Bakugo has his eyes on Pony.)"

The local girl screamed in fright and embarrassment instantly, shouting at the top of her lungs, "(THERE'S A PERVERT TOUCHING MY BUTT!)" A few seconds later, a young adult man came running into that area, having been summoned by the local girl's shouting; this young adult man was tall and had skin that was just as fair. He also had hair roughly as blonde as the local girl, which he wore in a single men's ponytail that trailed down the back of his head, save for the bangs which he allowed to frame his face.

The young adult man wore a light gray long-sleeved shirt (the sleeve ends hanging somewhat loosely rather than cling snugly to the wrists) under a seafoam green men's tank top, a pair of light gray cargo pants held up with a belt, white socks and a pair of men's sandals. Over his long-sleeved shirt and men's tank top, he wore a sleeveless seafoam green haori coat; it was of the long variety, reaching his knees.

Around his neck, the young adult man wore a pair of white studio headphones, the cords from the earpads trailing down until they became a single cord that disappeared into the right front pocket of his pants. There were black circles on the outside of the earpads. He had what appeared to be a cloth carrying case for a bokken, which seemed to hold two bokken at the moment, over his back, and it was peeking out from his right shoulder and left waist.

Right away, the young adult man spotted Mineta covering the local girl's rear in with his body. "(What the fuck do you think you're doing to Leni-chan, you pervert?!)" the young adult man snarled at the infamous pervert as he reached over his right shoulder and pulled a bokken out from the carrying case he wore over his back; this bokken he pulled out was three feet long, fairly thick, made of a whitish wood, and the faux leather wrapping at the handle end, which served at the hilt, had green threading.

Pointing his bokken at Mineta, the young adult man threatened, "(I'm going to fucking break you for fondling my girlfriend's butt!)" As the young adult man took a running charge right at him, Mineta knew that he had only one real option here.

Run as fast as he can, and get as far as he can.

* * *

Izuku, accompanied by Bakugo, Todoroki, Tenya, Tokoyami, Kirishima and Kaminari, were looking around the outskirts of one of the residential areas; Todoroki, disappointed that the hotel that the field trip was staying at did not have a pool, wanted to see if there were any pools in Royal Woods that he could go to. A local young teen girl, wearing a red and white sporting outfit and she wore her long brown hair in a sporty ponytail, gave Todoroki directions to the local pool. With the other 1-A boys that were with him, Todoroki went to locate the local pool.

"Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with half-and-half and call bullshit on how the hotel we're staying at doesn't have a pool," Bakugo remarked, "I mean, hotels like that are supposed to have pools, aren't they?"

Kaminari nodded in agreement before saying, "Yeah, it's really stupid, now that you mention it."

"Oh come on, you guys," Tenya remarked, "I'm certain that there is a perfectly valid and very-"

The class rep of 1-A was cut off when he, as well as the rest of the group he was with, all heard some panicked and frightened shouting coming from the distance. Said shouting was getting louder and louder as the guys saw someone getting closer to them. After a few seconds, they all saw their classmate Mineta come running towards them. It was Tokoyami who first spotted the young adult man with the bokken who was chasing the infamous pervert.

"Heyguyscovermyescapethanks!" Mineta said rather quickly as he ran past/through his group of classmates that he came across, leaving Izuku and the others looking confused before the young adult man with the bokken ended up coming to a stop in front of the 1-A, given that the boys were more or less blocking him from proceeding any further. Izuku looked like he had seen the young adult man somewhere before, but couldn't quite figure it out at the moment.

The young adult man had an angry, annoyed look on his face as he addressed the seven 1-A boys that stood in front of him. "(Out of my way, _now_,)" the young adult man said slash threatened, his temper very clearly cut short, as he pointed in the direction Mineta fled in with his bokken, "(I'm going to break that little fuck that just ran past you.)"

"(Sir,)" Tenya began as he addressed the young adult man in English, "(Although you may very well have a good reason to be upset with my classmate, there is no need to quote unquote 'break him', as you put it.)"

"(Get out of my way now,)" the young adult man continued to threaten, "(Or I will do to you and all of your friends here what I'm going to do that little bastard when I get my hands on him.)" To the surprise of the seven 1-A boys that were there, golden flames came out of the young adult man's right hand, which held his bokken. The weapon was then enveloped in a cloak of golden flames, flames that surprisingly did not burn the wooden instrument into ashes.

Upon seeing the golden flames, as well as getting another look at the young adult man's face, Izuku suddenly realized just who exactly he and his classmates were dealing with. "Everybody run!" Izuku shouted in Japanese at his classmates, "This guy has-" The green-eyed boy was cut off when the young adult man slashed the air in front of him with his blazing sword, creating a crescent-shaped projectile of golden fire that not only flew right at Izuku, but slammed into him with enough force to send him flying until he slammed his back into a tree on someone's front lawn. The green-eyed boy was automatically knocked out before falling over onto the ground.

"Holy shit!" Bakugo remarked, more than surprised as he and his fellows all saw Izuku getting one-shoted; given how tough Izuku was, none of the boys thought that their classmate in 1-A could get knocked out in one hit. But the young adult man before them just did that. As he and the others all turned to face the young adult man, Bakugo continued, "This guy must really be hella powerful if he can one-shot Deku like that!" The explosive teen did not sound like he was given a challenge that made him eager for battle; rather, he sounded very much rattled, like he would much rather get the hell out of there ASAP.

Giving Bakugo and the others a serious look, the young adult man began speaking in Japanese, surprising the boys. "So then," the young adult man said, "Given that both your blonde friend here and that boy with the green hair both spoke Japanese, I take it that all of you can speak it as well?" Without waiting for an answer, the young adult man said, "Good. Then we don't have to dance around the bush here."

Suddenly, the same cloak of golden flames that surrounded the young adult man's bokken spread to envelop the whole of the young adult man himself, making it look like the entirety of him had been engulfed in flames of brilliant gold. "Since you boys are taking too long to get out of my way," the young adult man snarled, very clearly having lost his temper, "I'm assuming that you all plan to cover for your purple ball-haired fellow that you let escape from me."

The young adult man inhaled through his mouth as much as he could before he exhaled, sending a stream of golden fire right at the remaining 1-A boys, hitting Kaminari in the gut and knocking him out instantly. Realizing that they were going to have to fight back, Bakugo, Todoroki, Tenya, Kirishima and Tokoyami all proceeded to engage the local young adult man in combat, despite all of them being nervous over seeing the man one-shot both Izuku and Kaminari.

Kirishima, using Red Riot Unbreakable, tried to charge at the young adult man head on, ramming right into the cloak of golden flames but failing to so much as make it budge. The young adult man, arching a wry eyebrow, dealt Kirishima a backhanded strike with his left fist, encloaked in golden flames, that sent the hardening quirk boy reeling a bit but not immediately knocked out.

While the young adult man was looking at Kirishima, Tenya tried to strike the back of his (the young adult man's) head with a Recipro Extended-boosted kick. However, it failed to make the cloak of golden flames so much as waver. All that Tenya succeeded in doing was getting the young adult man to turn his head a bit to see him. With an annoyed scowl, the young adult man merely smacked the 1-A class rep upside his head with his flaming bokken, knocking him out and sending him collapsing onto the ground.

While the young adult man was turned to look at the knocked out Tenya, a mix of fire, ice and explosions blasted into his front, although all of it was perfectly kept at bay by his cloak of golden fire. Turning around, the young adult man saw that Todoroki (who had made the ice and fire) and Bakugo (who had made the explosions) had regrouped with Tokoyami, who had Dark Shadow out which seemingly piqued the young adult man's interest a bit, and the slightly injured Kirishima. To the surprise of the remaining boys, the young adult man raised his bokken up so that it pointed straight up into the air.

Looking up, Bakugo, Todoroki, Kirishima, Tokoyami and Dark Shadow all saw a gigantic sphere of golden fire appear above the young adult man. "Solar Flare," the young adult man said right before he swung his bokken forward, causing the gigantic sphere of golden fire to fly right at everyone that still remained. The golden fire sphere was dropped on them, engulfing all four of them and Dark Shadow in a brilliant golden inferno, making all of them cry out in pain right before they all took enough damage to pass out, collapsing onto the ground as a result; Dark Shadow also retreated back into Tokoyami.

After all of his opponents were defeated, the young adult man willed his golden fire cloak to disappear. Returning his bokken to the carrying case he wore over his back, the young adult man looked around, an angry and annoyed scowl on his face. "…Damn it, the pervert escaped," the young adult man growled to himself as two local preteens came running up to him.

The first was a Caucasian boy with white hair; he had freckles under his eyes, a somewhat chipped tooth, and he wore a white long-sleeved shirt under an orange shirt that was open in the front over the white long-sleeve, a pair of tan cargo pants held up with a belt, and white shoes. A knife holster with a bowie knife in it was on the boy's left hip. The second child was a Hispanic girl wearing a purple hoodie, a pair of blue jean shorts, white socks and black shoes.

"(Holy geez, Aggro,)" the Hispanic girl said as she and the Caucasian boy looked around, "(What the hell happened here?)"

Gesturing to his carnage, the young adult man, apparently named Aggro, replied, "(These fellows got in my way as I was trying to chase down and beat up a pervert who I caught fondling Leni-chan's butt.)"

"(Somebody did _what_ to my older sister's butt?!)" the Caucasian boy exclaimed, alarmed to hear that something that was of so reprehensible a nature had been done to someone who turned out to be his older sister.

Pointing to the Caucasian boy, Aggro said, "(Lincoln-kun, I'm going to need you and Ronnie Anne here to collect all of these boys that I have knocked out and lay them out somewhere in a group while I call for some ambulances from Royal Woods General to take them all in for some medical treatment. We should also call Leni-chan's friend Fiona so she can use White Mage to help speed up the recovery process.)" Aggro let out a troubled, remorseful sigh, holding the prints on his right fingers to his forehead. "(…I can't believe that I let my temper get the best of me. My fury was aimed at the pervert, not these seven.)"

The Caucasian boy, apparently called Lincoln, nodded in understanding as he went about doing as Aggro told him, walking over to Bakugo first. As Lincoln got to work, the Hispanic girl, who was apparently called Ronnie Anne, looked up at Aggro and asked, "(Do you at least know what the guy who touched Lincoln's sister's butt looks like?)" Pounding a fist into her hand, Ronnie Anne said, "(Because you aren't the only one interested in pounding a pervert into wet sausage, you know. I can't stand perverts, either.)"

"(He's about the same height as you and others your age,)" Aggro began to explain, "(Maybe an inch or two taller. Despite that, I can tell that he's at least high school age. Additionally, he has purple balls on his head in place of actual hair.)" Gesturing to where Lincoln had already laid out Bakugo, Izuku and Todoroki, Aggro continued, "(And judging by how these seven fellows who I defeated all kept me from pursuing the fellow with purple balls for hair, as well as how all eight of them speaks Japanese, I figure that they all know the pervert that I wish to break.)"

By the time Aggro had finished explaining what he knew to the kids, they had finished gathering the knocked out 1-A boys, laying them in a row on a front lawn. As the first ambulance pulled up to the scene, Lincoln turned to Aggro and asked, "(Just who are these guys, Aggro-sensei?)"

Aggro gave a gentle shake of his head. "(…I have no clue right now, Lincoln-kun,)" Aggro replied, "(But I get the feeling that we'll learn soon enough.)"

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Author's notes;

The Louds are far and away from being the only notable individuals that Izuku and the rest of the BNHA characters will be dealing with/meeting up with over the course of this story as a whole. Things likewise won't be ending in this arc right here, as there are still a number of points that have to be covered, such as Mineta's responsibility in what happened to Izuku and the others being revealed, as well as something cropping up from the previous chapter.

…Case in point, that rich man who was annoyed that Uraraka Construction broke his otherwise perfect monopoly on the business of construction companies will be making his first (of many) move(s) in the next chapter, meaning that everyone's favorite gravity girl may be in danger. But not only will she have her classmates there to help her, but some locals living in Royal Woods may also lend a hand in helping to save Uraraka from the wealthy businessman's greed. Who knows how things will turn out in this temporary crossover of two of my works? There's only one way to find out, and that's to tune in next time.

As a side note, I'm sorry ahead of time if what Aggro did to Izuku and the others offends any of you, but there ARE a number of points to it, one of the main ones being that Mineta having lead him on like that was necessary in order to help establish the beginning of a sub-plot for Mineta that will go on over the next few chapters. Additionally, Aggro had lost his cool due to seeing what Mineta had done, and once he calmed down and realized what he had done while enraged by Mineta's actions, Aggro was very much remorseful for his actions. He will also get a chance to atone for what he did to Izuku and the others, so he WILL be making up for what he had done; a deal will be worked out. Don't go thinking that I do things without reason. This also had to happen in order to get a number of balls rolling in-universe, as well as get some balls rolling for a future AU story (that comes with a prelude story) that I plan to get out. In a way, what happened here was getting the toes wet for said story.

Also, don't worry; things are going to be taken care of in-story.


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter fifteen: The field trip part two: Assassins in Royal Woods

When Aizawa, Hizashi, Inko and Mitsuki all were informed by a policewoman called Officer Schoffner that seven boys that they were responsible for were all being treated at Royal Woods General due to all of them being wiped out in a fight, the four Japanese adults all rushed over as quickly as they could to see who exactly was injured and recovering in the hospital, with Inko and Mitsuki both fearing the worst.

When Aizawa, Hisashi, Inko and Mitsuki all ran into the room where the seven injured boys were laying in hospital beds as they recovered, Inko and Mitsuki both let out worried cries upon seeing that both Izuku (Inko's son/Mitsuki's boyfriend) and Bakugo (Mitsuki's son/Inko's surrogate grandson) were among the injured. A Caucasian teen girl with brown hair in a ponytail and a small mole on her cheek under her right eye was clearly using a healing quirk of some kind to tend to the knocked out Tokoyami.

The only boy out of the seven who was awake at the moment was Izuku; Bakugo, Todoroki, Tokoyami, Tenya, Kaminari and Kirishima were all still knocked out. Seeing the adults that just rushed into the room, the doctor that was looking over the injured 1-A boys said in English, "(Ah, you must be the adult party responsible for these boys.)"

"(Doctor, what the hell happened to these boys?!)" Aizawa said in a demanding tone in English as he gestured to his injured students.

Going over something he had in his file, the doctor said, "(From what I was told, these seven boys were all knocked out by Sengoku when they kept him from pursuing someone.)"

"(Sengoku?)" Hizashi repeated in a confused tone, "(Who the hell is-)"

"(Aggro Ace,)" the girl healing Tokoyami called out, getting the Japanese adults to all turn to face her. "(…He's my friend Leni's boyfriend,)" the teen girl continued right as she finished healing Tokoyami, "(He's a local quirked hero here in Royal Woods. He's known widely as the Samurai Hero Sengoku.)"

Giving the local teen girl that was healing the 1-A boys a curious look, Aizawa asked, "(And you might you be, young lady?)"

Gesturing to herself, the teen girl said, "(My name's Fiona. I'm using my quirk, White Mage, to help the doctors here treat these injured teens who you guys are clearly responsible for.)" Aizawa and the other Japanese adults watched as Fiona walked over to where Tenya laid in a hospital bed before she used White Mage on him. The Japanese adults, Aizawa and Hizashi in particular, watched with interest as the girl used her healing quirk.

"…She's like Recovery Girl," Hizashi whispered to Aizawa in Japanese, drawing an affirmative nod from the underground hero. Right after Aizawa nodded, two of Royal Woods's local preteens, Lincoln and Ronnie Anne, came walking into the hospital room, with the both of them going right over to Fiona as she worked her powers to heal the knocked out Tenya.

When Fiona turned to face him, Lincoln said, "(Hey Fiona, Aggro-sensei just provided me and Ronnie Anne with a drawing of the guy who fondled Leni's butt.)"

Nodding in thanks, Fiona replied with a hint of vengefulness in her tone, "(Good. I'll help you guys, Aggro and the others form a search party so we can track that bastard down and kick his ass for the stunt he pulled.)"

"(Excuse me,)" Izuku called out from his hospital bed in English, getting the locals and the Japanese adults to look at him, "(But what exactly is going on?)"

Both Lincoln and Ronnie Anne turned to properly face the green-haired cinnamon roll. "(Are you familiar with a fellow who looks like this?)" Ronnie Anne asked as she took a drawing from Lincoln, walked over to Izuku, and showed him the drawing, "(Aggro has reason to believe that you and your friends here know him.)"

"(…That looks like Mineta,)" Izuku remarked, a hint of grimness in his tone.

Lowering her hand that held the drawing, Ronnie Anne let out a resigned sigh. "(Aggro also told me and Lincoln that you and your friends here kept him from going after this 'Mineta' fellow, which is why he beat all seven of you up,)" the Hispanic preteen explained.

"(Young lady,)" Aizawa said as he got Ronnie Anne's attention, his tone carrying an underlying hint of sounding like he's about to get very annoyed and very cross with someone, "(Can I see that drawing really quick?)" Ronnie Anne complied and showed the underground hero the drawing that she had just shown to Izuku. "(…Yeah, that's Mineta, alright,)" Aizawa remarked to himself. Looking to Ronnie Anne, Aizawa asked while pointing to Lincoln, "(Can you or your little friend here tell us why this Aggro fellow wanted to attack Mineta?)"

Holding up a hand to get Aizawa's attention as well as the attention of every other conscious person in the room, Lincoln proceeded to explain, "(Aggro-sensei caught that Mineta fellow fondling the butt of my older sister Leni. Aggro-sensei, who is dating Leni, tried to go after Mineta, but these seven boys got in the way and kept him from going after Mineta. Thusly, Aggro-sensei felt that he had to knock them all out before he could continue, but by then Mineta had disappeared. Aggro-sensei really regrets what he did to the seven boys here, though.)"

"(Hang on,)" Izuku said, getting Lincoln to turn to face him, "(That's why that guy with the Sacred Heritage quirk tried to attack Mineta? He fondled your sis-)"

"Midoriya, little dude!" Hizashi said in Japanese, cutting Izuku off, "I'm not quite sure how you came to learn about that, but now is not the time or place to discuss it so op-"

This time, Aizawa was the one who made an interruption, getting Hizashi to stop. Giving Izuku a serious look, the underground hero said, "Present Mic has a point. I'm not sure myself how it is that you came to learn about Sacred Heritage quirks, Midoriya." With a gentle shake of his head, Aizawa continued, "But it will save some time in getting to the bottom of everything. Now then, there's one thing I have to ask."

"What is it, Aizawa-sensei?" Izuku replied in a curious tone.

Giving the green-eyed boy the most serious, no-nonsense look he had ever given anyone, Aizawa asked, "Are you absolutely, without a doubt, positively sure that the guy who Mineta led into attacking you and the other boys recovering here is a Sacred Heritage quirk user?" With all that he knew about the subject, as well as what he had personally seen as well as got hit by, Izuku knew without a doubt that he and his fellow 1-A boys were throttled by someone using a Sacred Heritage quirk.

The nod in the affirmative that Aizawa got from Izuku made the underground hero swear to himself under his breath. "That perverted little fuck…" Aizawa grumbled. Turning to Hizashi, Inko and Mitsuki, Aizawa said, "Well, I just confirmed that not only did Mineta sexually harass a local girl living here, but that Mineta also very nearly got Midoriya, Bakugo, Todoroki, Iida, Kaminari, Kirishima and Tokoyami killed."

"What?!" Inko and Mitsuki exclaimed in unison.

Nodding in confirmation, Aizawa said, "There's no use using secrecy in this case, so I might as well not beat around the bush. Inko, Mitsuki, the boy who attacked your respective sons and their five classmates here has something called a Sacred Heritage quirk. It's an extremely rare and powerful quirk that can be very easily used to wipe out whole scores of other quirked individuals in one sweep." Gesturing to where all of the injured 1-A boys laid, Aizawa continued, "We're all very lucky that the worst these boys got was-"

"One hell of an ass kicking," Bakugo said as he just started coming to, propping himself up in his hospital bed with some difficulty. With the other adults looking at him, Bakugo said, "I heard a bit of what you guys said before I opened my eyes just now." Letting out a mildly pained grunt, the explosive teen said, "So because Grape Head was being a pervert as per usual, he led some guy with a crazy-powerful golden fire quirk to kick my ass as well as the asses of all of the other guys recovering here with me."

Letting out an annoyed scoff, Mitsuki turned to Aizawa and said, "So that perverted little fuck in your homeroom not only grabbed a local girl's ass, but he used my son, my boyfriend and five of their classmates as scapegoats so he could escape scot free." Crossing her arms over her chest, the ashy-haired woman said, "You seriously need to discipline that perverted little fuck."

The underground hero nodded in agreement with Mitsuki. "Not only did he do what constitutes as sexual harassment while we were here in the States, but he also nearly got seven of his fellow classmates killed. Not to mention how Mineta might have very well been responsible for creating an international problem that was just thrown onto U.A.'s plate." With a gentle shake of his head, Aizawa remarked, "Because of my past record of expelling students from U.A., I'm going to have to first ask Nezu for approval once we return to Japan since he had to put a limit on me in regards to my authority to expel students. But if Nezu does gives me the okay to do so, then I'm going to be expelling Mineta from U.A. first thing when we all get back home."

Hizashi, as well as every other Japanese person in the room who was conscious at the time, all went wide-eyed with shock. …Well, Bakugo's eyes went wide with a mix of shock and rather amused surprise. "Well hot damn, Aizawa-sensei!" Bakugo remarked, "I'm getting sick of how Grape Head acts towards Pony all the time at U.A.! About damn time something serious is done to deal with him!"

Izuku, despite how he also has little sympathy for the infamous pervert, could not help but worry about Aizawa openly stating a desire to expel Mineta from U.A. "Aizawa-sensei," Izuku began, "As much as Mineta deserves to be punished for what he did, don't you think expelling him is a bit on the harsh side of things?" With a shrug, the green-eyed boy said, "At least give Mineta a chance here, is what I'm saying."

"Heh, that's just like you, Deku," Bakugo remarked, "Always wanting to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, no matter how many times that person fucked up." Giving the green-haired cinnamon roll a mildly amused look, Bakugo continued, "It's no wonder that the old hag got the hots for you." Mitsuki, with an indifferent look, merely flipped her son the middle finger.

Aizawa, with a look of consideration on his face, remarked, "Very well, Midoriya. I'll give Mineta a chance." To both Izuku and Bakugo, the underground hero said, "When we get back to Japan, I'll hold a vote in which everyone in 1-A aside from Mineta will be allowed to cast a ballet, answering yes to keep Mineta or no to expel him. Whichever option gets the most votes will be the choice that I go with." Shrugging, Aizawa said, "I'll just put Mineta on house arrest and give him a bunch of extra duties for the rest of the year if the class votes to keep him."

Izuku, having a very strong feeling that everyone was going to vote to have Mineta expelled anyway, sighed in a resigned tone, grateful that at least some measure of chance was being given to the infamous pervert, although Izuku would be lying if he said he wasn't considering voting to have Mineta kicked out of U.A. himself. At least things will be decided upon by majority vote, so democracy was going to be respected.

* * *

"I still can't believe it!" Uraraka practically screamed in angered frustration as she, along with Mina, Tsuyu, Kyoka, Hagakure and Yaoyorozu, all hung out in the lunch room slash restaurant that was on the first floor of the hotel that the 1-A field trip was staying at. "I still can't believe that Izuku and some of the other boys were throttled by some local guy and are going to have to miss most of the rest of the field trip!" the gravity girl complained, "It's just not fair!"

Crossing her arms over her chest, Kyoka remarked, "And to make matters worse, if all of what we heard Aizawa-sensei talk about with Hizashi-sensei, Mrs. Midoriya and Mrs. Bakugo is true, then it's all Mineta's fault because he grabbed a local girl's butt and made her boyfriend with a crazy-powerful fire quirk attack the boys and knock them all out, while Mineta himself got away from the fight scot free."

The rock music lover still had no sympathy for the infamous pervert, as it was his fault that he ruined her chances to have a serious, nice thing going with Kaminari, one of the boys that's recovering at Royal Woods General. With a gentle shake of her head, Kyoka remarked, "I hope like hell that what Aizawa-sensei mentioned to the other adults about holding a vote to determine if he'll expel Mineta or not ends up happening, because I already know what my vote will be."

The other girls all nodded in agreement with Kyoka, with the green plastic headband Hagakure wore being an indicator of her nodding. Clapping her hands together, Yaoyorozu said, "Well girls, we've talked enough about negative stuff, so let's try to change the subject to something of a more palatable nature."

"Oh, we can talk about rumors that I heard about the students in 1-B," Mina said, "For starters, I hear that Togaru Kamakiri of class 1-B sees Bakugo as something of a rival, though I'm not sure if Bakugo feels the same about him in return."

"I heard that Yosetsu Awase has a bit of a crush on Yaoyorozu here," Kyoka remarked with an amused grin on her face as she patted the rich girl on her back.

Yaoyorozu, with a mildly embarrassed blush on her face, said, "Well, umm, we don't know any of that for sure, Jiro. Both the thing on Togaru and the thing on Yosetsu."

Shrugging, Mina said, "Meh, your loss." With an amused look on her face, the pink-skinned girl continued, "Ooh, while we're talking about gossip, I heard some hearsay that Kinoko Komori has the biggest-"

"Can we please drop talking about 1-B for now?!" Yaoyorozu exclaimed suddenly, getting confused looks from the other girls. The only other 1-A girl that did not regard their rich classmate with confusion was Hagakure, although her face could not be seen. Either way, the invisible girl was likewise uncomfortable when the talk of 1-B suddenly shifted to mention of that class's resident mushroom expert.

Letting out a resigned sigh, Mina said, "Geez. With some of the boys being throttled and nothing much to talk about to distract ourselves, the wind's really been knocked out of my sails, so to speak." Getting up from the chair that she sat in, Mina stretched her arms a bit as she said, "We have got to find something to break up the monotony, you know?"

The 1-A girls tried to come up with something on what to do while they and their classmates who were not in the hospital or under house arrest were still in Royal Woods. As the six of those girls all talked, they had no idea that, sitting a ways away at a bar counter in the dining hall, two adult men were eyeing the six of them. Both men, who were working together, spoke in hushed tones to each other, and in Japanese, same as the 1-A girls.

Pointing to where the six girls sat, one of the men said to the other, "Our target is right over there. I say we whip out a knife, go over slit her throat before getting the hell out of dodge."

"You forget that the girl, as well as her companions, all have quirks," the second man said to the first, "If we go over to try and eliminate the target, not only will she fight back, but her friends will undoubtedly pitch in to help repel us." With a gentle shake of his head, the second man went on, "To make matters harder for us, our target's with the untouchable. Not only will our pay be forfeit if she gets involved and hurt, but we can essentially kiss our careers good-bye."

Scoffing, the first man said in a rather annoyed tone, "Fuck, our target just _had_ to be in close proximity to the untouchable, didn't she? That will make things loads more difficult for us if we're to send that upstart construction company ruining the boss's monopoly on the business back in Japan." The second man nodded in agreement with his fellow.

After taking a sip of his drink, the second man said, "We'll just have to wait until our target is alone, or at a minimum not anywhere near the untouchable. Then it's just a matter of sneaking over to the girl from behind her and slitting her throat." Patting the side of the coat that he wore, as if he were pointing something out, the second man added with a bit of an amused smirk, "I got my favorite bowie knife right here, you know."

The first man, with an amused smirk as well, held his glass up in a toast. "Here's to the future paycheck that we'll get upon completing a job well done!" Both the first and second men clinked their glasses together as the both laughed a bit amongst themselves, eager to get to work to carry out a plot that is undoubtedly on the rather sinister side of things.

* * *

Later, Uraraka was walking along one of the residential areas with Tsuyu and Hagakure, as the girls decided to slip up into two groups of three, with Mina taking Kyoka and Yaoyorozu with her somewhere else, most likely to check out the local mall. "Why are we going to a pizza place if we literally just are breakfast kero?" Tsuyu asked as she turned her head to address Uraraka.

"It's also an arcade," the gravity girl pointed out, "And I would be lying if I didn't admit to wanting to check out an American arcade."

Giving a shrug, Hagakure remarked, "Fair enough. I still remember the double date that Ojiro and I went on with Izuku and Mrs. Bakugo, where we went to an arcade and Mrs. Bakugo really scored big time with how many tickets she won." To both Uraraka and Tsuyu, the invisible girl said, "I wonder how different an American arcade is from the ones we have back in-"

"(Hey, look out!)" a random female voice called out in English, cutting Hagakure off. Suddenly, before any of the three 1-A girls could respond, they were all tackled to the ground by a different girl each, with two of the tackling girls getting up to go after something else.

When Uraraka, Tsuyu and Hagakure saw what was going on, they saw what looked to be a thirteen-year-old girl in red and white and a rather muscular fifteen-year-old girl in purple fighting two adult men, both of which were armed with knives and looked like they were trying to sneak up on the 1-A girls. Uraraka, Tsuyu and Hagakure saw that the last remaining girl that tackled them, who was sitting next to Tsuyu, looked to be about six years of age.

This six-year-old had blonde hair in twin pigtails, and she wore a dark green t-shirt under overalls, a red baseball cap worn backwards, and a pair of white shoes with black stripes. The thirteen-year-old girl had brown hair in a sporty ponytail, and she wore a red-and-white sports jersey with sleeves reaching halfway down her forearms, a pair of red gym shorts, white socks and black cleats.

As for the fifteen-year-old girl, she wore her dark brown hair in a pixie cut, wore one paperclip in each earlobe as earrings, a purple sleeveless shirt with a white skull symbol on the front, a lavender plaid skirt, two white belts around her waist, and a pair of purple boots that reached close to her knees. She was also rather notably muscular; by Uraraka's estimation, the purple-clad girl had to be at least as buff as Mirio-senpai.

"Fuck!" the first man swore in Japanese, "Some of the locals got in the way!"

"(Hey Luna!)" the thirteen-year-old girl said in English to the muscular fifteen-year-old girl, "(That one guy just spoke in the same language that Leni's boyfriend knows!)" After she punched the second guy (the one who didn't speak) in the face, the thirteen-year-old girl said, "(Didn't he also tutor Lincoln in that language as well?)"

Letting out a grunt as she slugged the first guy in the gut, sending him reeling a bit, the fifteen-year-old girl, apparently named Luna, replied, "(Yeah, Lynn. The little dude picked up Japanese from Leni's guy.)"

"(Then-)" the thirteen-year-old girl, apparently named Lynn, said as she paused a bit to punch the guy she was fighting again, "(-Maybe either Lincoln or Aggro could help us figure out what these two are saying!)"

The two would-be assailants managed to group up a few feet away from Lynn and Luna. "Well shit," the first assailant swore, "Our first attempt was foiled. We ought to fall back."

Nodding in agreement, the second assailant said, "Right-o." The second assailant then pulled out a small little orb, roughly the size of a large marble, and threw it at the ground. It burst into a cloud of smoke upon impact, and made Lynn and Luna cough a bit due to the smoke. The two assailants both fled the scene, not wanting to stick around any further.

With the coast clear, Lynn and Luna both turned their attention to the 1-A girls that were present and the six-year-old girl that was still next to Tsuyu. To the 1-A girls' surprise, Luna's very buff body shrank down into a regular slim fifteen-year-old girl's body. "(You have a quirk that lets you become buff?)" Hagakure asked in English to Luna as she was helped up.

Luna, giving the invisible girl she helped up a curious look, said, "(And your invisibility quirk can't be shut off, I take it?)"

The nodding of Hagakure's green plastic headband was the indication that Luna needed to tell that the invisible girl was nodding in the affirmative. "(Thanks for the save kero,)" Tsuyu remarked to Luna and the other girls, "(But who are you three exactly?)"

Gesturing to herself, Luna replied, "(My name is Luna Loud.)" Gesturing to Lynn and the six-year-old girl in that order, the purple-clad girl continued, "(And these are two of my younger sisters, Lynn and Lana.)"

Pointing in the direction the two assailants fled in, Lana said while using her other hand to gesture to Uraraka, "(We saw those two guys try to sneak up behind you with a knife, so we thought that they wanted to cut your neck and kill you.)"

"(They…)" the gravity girl said with a shocked look on her face, very clearly alarmed to learn that she was the target for an assassination, "(…They wanted to _kill_ me? Why?)"

"(No clue, brah,)" Luna replied with a gentle head shake as she crossed her arms over her chest, "(But luckily for you guys, there are a number of quirked heroes here in Royal Woods. We'll have someone get to the bottom of this.)"

Gesturing to Luna's sisters, Uraraka said as she addressed Luna, "(Well my friends and I saw your quirk in action, but what kind of quirks do your sisters here have?)"

"(Lana and I…)" Lynn began, "(…Are actually both quirkless.)"

Nodding in confirmation, Lana said, "(Out of me and all ten of my siblings, only Luna, Lisa and Lincoln have quirks, and Lily's too young to check yet because she's still a baby.)"

Nodding in understanding, Uraraka said, "(Well either way, my friends and I still have to thank you for the save.)" With an embarrassed wince, the gravity girl continued, "(I need to especially say thanks, since the three of you all saved me from being killed.)" Gesturing to herself, then to Tsuyu and Hagakure in that order, Uraraka added, "(By the way, I'm Uraraka, and these are my friends and classmates Tsuyu and Hagakure.)"

"(We ought to group up with Kyoka, Mina and Yaoyorozu back at the hotel,)" Tsuyu remarked, "(We should also inform Aizawa-sensei and the other adults about what happened. We can use all the help we can get here kero.)" The frog girl's remark drew affirmative nods out of all of the other girls.

Pulling out a cellphone, Luna said, "(I'll rustle up some back-up as well. Just give me and my sisters the address of the hotel you're staying at, and we'll come by with some special forces to help track down those would-be killer blokes.)" The 1-A girls all nodded in agreement as they proceeded to make arrangements with Luna and her sisters in regards to getting help in tracking down the two men who tried to murder Uraraka.

* * *

Aizawa, Hizashi, Inko and Mitsuki were all sitting at the same table in the dining hall of the hotel that the field trip was staying at. They were all in various moods over the stunt that Mineta had pulled that resulted in seven of his fellow 1-A boys nearly getting killed, with Aizawa stating an open desire to either strangle Mineta, or inflict a few good critical hits on the infamous pervert's hidden treasure.

Raising a hand, Mitsuki said, "I can always use a little technique that I developed on the perverted little fuck. It's a special move that I like to call Divorced Mom style: Kick of one-thousand Peri-"

"Mitsuki, I think that's enough," Inko replied, cutting her friend off midsentence. As the four Japanese adults talked, the six girls in 1-A came running over, accompanied by Luna, Lynn, Lana and Lincoln. Once the group had reached the Japanese adults, it was Tsuyu who got their attention and began telling them what had happened.

With Uraraka, Tsuyu and Hagakure providing details while Lincoln translated Japanese words into English for his sisters, the group explained to the Japanese adults what had happened to Uraraka, Tsuyu and Hagakure while they were out exploring. They also noted how Luna and her sisters had not only saved Uraraka's life, but also drove the would-be assailants off. The girls and their American allies came by as soon as they had picked up Mina, Kyoka and Yaoyorozu, as well as Lincoln. After the girls had finished, the four Japanese adults all looked at them with wide-eyed looks of shock.

Scoffing in an annoyed tone, Aizawa said, "Well this is just great. Not only did one of my boys nearly get seven of my other boys killed, but now one of my girls was almost murdered in cold blood by a pair of would-be assassins for who knows what reason!"

"Uraraka should be kept here at the hotel, with a few others with her at all times," Hizashi suggested, "In case those killers come back and try to take another crack at putting the little lady six feet under."

"You boys may also want to try to rustle up some support in tracking down and capturing those two detestable men what tried to kill a girl as sweet as Uraraka here," Inko said to Aizawa and Hizashi while gesturing to Uraraka.

As Uraraka lit up a bit out of embarrassment, Mina nudged her with an elbow while saying, "Hey Uraraka, it looks like you would have had a serious shot with Izuku if he wasn't already taken by Bakugo's mom. After all, Mrs. Midoriya just gave you her seal of approval."

Ignoring what the girls in his homeroom were doing/saying, Aizawa said to the other Japanese adults, "Tracking down and capturing those men is a key part here that we cannot simply ignore. We need to interrogate them to learn who they are, why they wanted to kill one of my girls, and if there's anything else in the works that currently in play."

Snapping her fingers, Luna said, "(Damn. I wish that Harold-sensei and his friends were still here. Harold-sensei's friend Mr. Yamanaka would have been hella useful in interrogation.)"

"Excuse me, sir," Lincoln said to Aizawa, getting his attention and the attention of the other Japanese adults, "But if you guys need help in forming a party or two to track down the men that tried to murder one of your students, then may I be so bold as to offer a suggestion?"

"…Go on, young man," Aizawa replied as he gestured to Lincoln.

Nodding once in thanks, the sole Loud boy explained, "If you and your associates here need help in finding those would-be killers, then just give me and my sisters a bit of time to call some of our friends. We know quite a number of quirked people living here in Royal Woods, in addition to myself, my older sister Luna and our younger sister Lisa." Lincoln proceeded to list off a number of people he knew who would be able to help, such as Luna's girlfriend Sam, that Fiona girl that was healing the injured 1-A boys, Lincoln's (more than a) friend Ronnie Anne, and a few other quirked individuals that he was familiar with.

"…Oh!" Lincoln added at the end, "There's a chance that Aggro-sensei may be available to lend a hand with the hunt for those two killers. I have to call him first, though."

"Hey little man," Hizashi began, "That Aggro-sensei guy you speak of is the fellow with the gold fire quirk, right?" After Lincoln nodded in the affirmative, Hizashi turned to Aizawa and whispered to him, "If Aggro agrees to help, I say we add him to our roster. A Sacred Heritage quirk user would be an insanely useful boon to our efforts, especially when we find out who the killers are and know where to go to capture them. I heard that he still feels guilty for beating up some of the boys while he was trying to go after Mineta, so it would help him make up for what he did if he pitched in with tracking down the guys that tried to kill Uraraka." Lincoln nodded a few times in the affirmative, confirming that Aggro still regretted what he did to Izuku and the other 1-A boys recovering in the hospital, and was likewise looking for a way to atone for his actions.

The underground hero nodded in agreement with his co-worker and fellow pro hero. To Lincoln, Aizawa said, "Alright, young man. If you and your sisters can get a few of the local quirked people here in Royal Woods to help with the search for the men who tried to kill Uraraka, then we would gratefully accept the help." To the girls in his homeroom, Aizawa said, "I need you girls to call all of your classmates who aren't recovering at the hospital or are Mineta, tell them that I'm ordering all of them to return to the hotel at once, and meet me and the others here in the hotel's dining hall. We'll be waiting here for Lincoln and his sisters to return with the backup that they mentioned. I'll also be discussing what to do to ensure Uraraka's protection."

The 1-A girls all nodded in agreement with their teacher as they all whipped out their respective cellphones; Hagakure had a particularly easy time contacting Ojiro since she had him on speed dial since they were an item now. Once the rest of 1-A had been contacted and all of them were confirmed to be on their way back to the hotel, Lincoln and his sisters took their leave to go gather as many of their quirked friends as they could get ahold of.

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Author's notes;

This sub-arc in the 'Crossover Field Trip arc' is actually taking a bit longer to get through than I had originally anticipated; I was estimating that I would do all of it in just two chapters, but I see at this point that it requires three chapters at a minimum. There's still a good bit that 1-A has to deal with before they can return from Royal Woods back to Japan; the 'Crossover Field Trip arc' isn't over just yet. Don't worry, though, I'll let you know when this current arc _does_ end, as well as what the next arc will be called.

As a side note, Mineta's fuck-up prompting Aizawa to want to expel him from U.A. is not just a one-off joke; it's a serious part of the storyline as a whole that I had planned since before I began work on the first chapter of this story. I've already decided on what Mineta's ultimate fate in regards to that plotline will be, but I would still like to hear from all of you, hear what all of you think about if Mineta should be expelled or not. Anyway, the next chapter will see Aizawa and Hizashi organize a bunch of quirked individuals, both 1-A students and locals that live in Royal Woods, into various groups to help track down and capture the men who tried to kill Uraraka, as well as protect Uraraka should at least one of the men return.


	16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter sixteen: The field trip part three: A game plan is thrown together and implemented

With the exceptions of the boys recovering in Royal Woods General, as well as Mineta who is on house arrest following his deplorable behavior on the field trip, Aizawa, Hizashi, Inko and Mitsuki had all of the 1-A students in the dining hall of the hotel that the field trip was staying at while in Royal Woods, Michigan. Additionally, four local youths, Luna Loud and her younger siblings Lynn, Lana and Lincoln, had gathered a number of their quirked friends to gather in the hotel dining hall as well.

This included Lincoln's (more than a) friend Ronnie Anne who Aizawa saw back at the hospital with Lincoln earlier, a fuller-bodied Hispanic teenage girl that Ronnie Anne identified as her older cousin Carlota, a blonde girl with a streak of blue in her hair identified by Luna as her girlfriend Sam, Fiona who was seen treating the injured 1-A boys earlier, a chubby blonde girl who Lincoln identified as Aggro's sixteen-year-old cousin Anastacia, and the cherry on top was Aggro himself. There's a few others, but those listed are who stood out to the pros the most.

The two Japanese pro heroes were glad to have someone with so strong a quirk as part of their efforts to track down the two men who tried to murder Uraraka earlier, even though said guy with the powerful quirk was the very guy that put seven of 1-A's boys in Royal Woods General, yet another reason why Aizawa was contemplating expelling the aforementioned Mineta, as it was his fault that said attack even occurred at all. It was a good thing that Aggro wished to make up for what he did, and it was something the Japanese adults intended to make full use of. With all of the gathered persons before them, Aizawa and the others began addressing them.

Raising a hand, Aizawa said to the crowd in Japanese, "Who among the English speakers here can translate what I'm saying for the English speakers that don't understand Japanese?" A few hands went up, notably the right hands of Lincoln and Aggro. After he gestured for the raised hands to go back down, the underground hero said, "Alright everyone, listen up. About an hour ago, one of class 1-A's own, Ochaco Uraraka, was nearly murdered by a pair of would-be killers. The reason why she's alive is because a few local girls saved her while she was out earlier."

Facing his students specifically, Aizawa said, "I'm certain that the girls already filled you boys in on some of the finer details." As some English speakers were translating for their fellows who did not speak Japanese, Aizawa continued as he addressed the crowd as a whole, "We need to not only track down and capture Uraraka's would-be killers and any fellows associated with them, but also protect Uraraka herself, as there is still strong reason to believe that she's still in a lot of danger."

The underground hero considered his students that were present in the hotel dining hall. All of the 1-A girls were present, although Uraraka, for obvious reasons, would not be allowed to participate in the hunt for the two men (as well as any possible fellows associated with them) that tried to kill her earlier. Mineta was still on house arrest, and there was the fact that Izuku, Tenya, Bakugo, Tokoyami, Todoroki, Kirishima and Kaminari were all still hospitalized.

Subtracting the eight boys and one girl, Aizawa counted that only eleven of his students were available for what ended up being a surprise hero mission while they were in the States, barely more than half of his brats total. And some of them might/would have to be assigned to guard Uraraka. The underground hero was glad that some of the local quirked people not only were able to help, but had also cleared things with various local officials to allow them, Japanese heroes and heroes-in-training, to operate in the United States.

"First off," Aizawa said as he addressed the crowd as a whole, "We're going to have to organize into multiple groups for various roles. Two groups will have to remain here at the hotel, with one guarding Uraraka and the other patrolling around the place to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity that may crop up."

Raising a hand, the chubby girl identified as Aggro's cousin Anastacia (who Aggro translated the Japanese words for) said with a strong hint of German in her accent, "(The team patrolling the hotel here should be composed mostly if not entirely of Royal Woods residents. The locals here may be unsettled to see a bunch of who they will view as foreigners walking about on patrol.)"

Nodding in agreement with Anastacia, Aizawa said while pointing at her, "That's an excellent point. I was thinking that Luna and Sam could lead Lincoln, Ronnie Anne and those Clyde and Chandler boys in patrolling the hotel grounds, splitting up into two smaller group composed of a teenager watching two kids." Looking over to where the Royal Woods locals stood, Luna and her girlfriend turned their attention to the four kids standing with them; Lincoln, Ronnie Anne, an African American boy with glasses, and a boy with dark reddish hair.

"As for the group that will guard Uraraka, I'm going to have to assign Hagakure, Kyoka, Carlota and Anastacia to that role," Aizawa said as he gestured to where all of the girls in his homeroom class all stood, "I'll be needing Yaoyorozu, Mina and Tsuyu to join teams composed mainly of those of us from Japan to be some of the teams that goes out on patrol to look for any sign of the would be killers. Hagakure will make use of her quirk to be an invisible guard for Uraraka that the would-be killers can't see, and Tsuyu is needed in the field since she saw what both of the men who tried to kill Uraraka look like."

Once all the groups were formed, they all proceeded to go about their appropriate tasks; this saw Hagakure and Kyoka lead Uraraka, Anastacia and Carlota back up to the hotel room that was assigned to the 1-A girls, as well as see Luna and Sam lead Lincoln, Ronnie Anne, Clyde and Chandler off to begin patrolling the hotel grounds. That group of six was divided up into two smaller groups of three, with Luna leading Lincoln and Ronnie Anne, and Sam leading Clyde and Chandler.

And this is saying nothing of all the groups that went out to track down the would-be killers and any fellows that they may have; one such group, led by Aizawa, consisted of himself, Hizashi, Shoji, Yaoyorozu and Aggro. The underground hero was secretly rather keen on making sure the Sacred Heritage quirk user that they got was on his team, as he wanted to be safe rather than sorry if he and his group were to encounter at least one of the would-be killers. Aggro was glad that he had been given a chance to atone for having lost his temper earlier.

With so many quirked individuals going out on the hunt for the would-be killers and any associated fellows, along with two teams of three patrolling the hotel grounds and Uraraka being protected around the clock, the heroes and Royal Woods locals felt confident that the problem would be resolved in next to flat. Even so, they all knew better than to rest on their laurels, with Aizawa having devoted an entire class period to educate 1-A against resting on laurels. Given that there were some killers loose in Royal Woods, everyone knew the dangers involved.

* * *

Uraraka, accompanied by Hagakure, Kyoka, Carlota and Anastacia, all sat around in the hotel room that was used by the 1-A girls during the field trip. "(I can't believe that someone actually wants to kill me,)" Uraraka remarked in a sad tone, clearly sounding worried and afraid for her life. Uraraka, as well as Kyoka and Hagakure, all knew enough English to carry out basic conversations with Carlota and Anastacia; the three Japanese girls had nowhere near as much mastery over the language as the more fluent members of their class, but they still had enough to suit their needs.

Scoffing in a bitter tone, Kyoka said, "(I can't believe Mineta almost got Kaminari killed.)"

Carlota and Anastacia both perked up out of piqued interest when they heard Kyoka mention what had her down. "(…Mineta is that fellow with purple balls for hair that grabbed Leni Loud's butt, right?)" Anastacia asked, "(Yeah, sorry that my cousin Aggro lost his shit when he saw what Mineta did.)"

"(No, we don't blame Aggro for getting steamed at that pervert,)" Hagakure assured the chubby blonde girl, "(Mineta had whatever Aggro was going to do to him coming.)" Hagakure, to take maximum advantage of her invisibility quirk so as to be an unseeable protector to keep an eye out for danger in order to safeguard Uraraka, was completely naked, meaning that the only way someone knew where she was standing at was hearing her talk, looking over in the appropriate direction, and making an educated guess.

Turning to face the direction the invisible girl's voice came from, Anastacia said, "(Yeah, but Aggro ended up attacking seven of your classmates instead of Mineta.)"

"(Because Mineta, the coward that he is, used Kaminari and the other boys as scapegoats to distract your cousin while he himself got away from the fight scot free,)" Kyoka remarked, her tone still very bitter.

Letting out a resigned sigh, Uraraka said, "(You're still upset about how you were tricked into brutally rejecting Kaminari because of Mineta, aren't you Jiro?)"

"(I still want to make things right with Kaminari,)" the rock lover confessed, looking very sad, as if she might start tearing up at any moment, "(And because of how that perverted little fuck could not keep it in his pants, I nearly lost all chances to make things up to Kaminari forever because of how he was almost killed.)" Her expression scrunching up a bit to further highlight how terrible she felt over her unfounded treatment of the electric quirk boy, treatment that she was made to do because of Mineta, Kyoka said, "(If only I hadn't fallen for Mineta's easy words that day. I…I might actually have something special right now.)"

Carlota and Anastacia, having very little familiarity with Kyoka's story, had no idea on what exactly to say. Uraraka and Hagakure, on the other hand, both sympathized with the rock lover. "(…Don't worry,)" Uraraka reassured Kyoka, patting her gently on the back, "(From what I was able to collect on the subject, there might be a very small chance that Kaminari might be open to the idea of trying to go out with you again.)"

"(Exactly!)" Hagakure cheered, "(And since Mineta getting expelled is most likely going to happen, he won't be around to screw things up anymore! Not for you, not for Kaminari, and not for anybody else!)"

"(Your classmates have a point,)" Carlota said to Kyoka, "(There's a chance that you can get back what that perverted little _puta_ took from you by running his mouth or whatever it was that he did to screw things up for you.)" Anastacia said nothing, but she did nod in agreement.

Kyoka, seeing how much all of the girls were supporting her, could not help but crack a smile, one that was small and looked a little sad, but very clearly appreciative all the same. "(Thanks, you girls,)" Kyoka said as she wiped a tear from her right eye. Turning to face Uraraka, Kyoka added, "(Especially you, Uraraka. I mean, we're supposed to be looking out for you, but here you are trying to cheer me up.)"

Gently shaking her head, Uraraka replied, "(It's no problem. We all have to look out for each other.)" Flopping back onto her bed, the gravity girl said, "(Geez, I wish that Izuku and the other boys weren't recovering at the local hospital right now.)"

Gesturing to Uraraka, Anastacia said, "(Relax, girl. Since Fiona used her quirk to help speed up the recovery process, the boys will be back on their feet in no time at all. In fact, knowing how good Fiona's quirk White Mage is, chances are that the boys may recover in time to be able to lend a hand in tracking down the guys who tried to kill you.)"

"(I'd rather that the boys just return to the hotel after they get out of the hospital and rest for the rest of the field trip)," Kyoka remarked, "(I mean, they shouldn't strain themselves, you know?)"

Some giggling came from Hagakure before the invisible girl said, "(You're just saying that because you want to be Kaminari's personal nurse, aren't you?)" When the rock lover lit up red out of embarrassment, the other girls in the room all began laughing in amusement, apparently having figured out Kyoka's true plans.

* * *

Aizawa, leading Hizashi, Yaoyorozu, Shoji and Aggro, all arrived at some warehouses. "This is where some criminals and low-level villains have been known to gather when looking to group up, gather information or for potential jobs," Aggro explained to the others in the group. As all of them spoke Japanese, Aggro was free to use his preferred language. Pointing to where two large dark gray warehouses sat next to one another side by side, Aggro continued, "My older twin sister, Allison, occasionally comes here looking for said criminals and low-level villains if she's in the mood to knock some heads around."

"Yes, we got some info on that twin sister of yours after she nearly went ballistic on Sekijiro's students when they were here in Royal Woods on their field trip," Aizawa remarked, knowing enough details from that incident to talk to Aggro about it.

Letting out a knowing sigh, Aggro said, "Allison very clearly overreacted that day, but in her defense she was under the impression that her beliefs were being attacked by the Christian girl in that class. My sister takes her veneration of the Norse gods very seriously."

Nodding in understanding, Aizawa remarked, "Yeah, Sekijiro says that he's still trying to get Ibara to be more understanding of the faiths of others." Keeping quiet, Aizawa's group made their way into one of the warehouses. They snuck along a bit until Aggro, who peeked around a corner, gestured for the entire party to stop. Aggro then discreetly pointed something out to Aizawa and Hizashi while Yaoyorozu and Shoji hung back.

The two Japanese pro heroes and the male Ace twin spotted a fair-skinned middle-age looking man with long, straight bright reddish hair. He wearing a casual but still notably fine outfit consisting of a white dress shirt under a faded pastel light green suit top that was open in the front. The man also wore a pair of pants whose color matched the open suit top, a pair of shiny black shoes, and the man wore small circular glasses with green lenses (the kind of glasses you'd expect stereotypical hippies from the 60's to wear), four various rings with one each on both index and ring fingers, a pair of men's chain bracelets on the left wrist and a high-quality gold watch on his right, and a simple gold men's chain necklace.

Pointing to the well-dressed man, Aggro whispered to the Japanese pro heroes, "That's Shawn O'Shaymin. He's something of an information broker among the criminals and villains that operate in this region of the United States. Shawn's taken up something of a permanent residence here in the Royal Woods area due to so much recent activity involving quirked individuals." With a serious look on his face, the male Ace twin continued, "If any notable illegal activity, such as what those two men who tried to kill Uraraka, takes place here in Royal Woods, then he will have at least some information on it."

"Huh, an information broker," Hizashi remarked, a rare aura of seriousness emanating from the pro hero with a cockatiel-esque hairstyle, "Kind of reminds me of this one League of Villains member that we pro heroes in Japan have info on called Giran." Turning to look up at Aggro, Hizashi asked, "The thing is, can we trust him?"

With a calm look of consideration, Aggro said, "…A while ago, shortly before you all came here to Royal Woods on the field trip, there was an incident where a former employee of the local sewage treatment plant, Brandon McCann, tried to start some manner of criminal enterprise. My friend Bobby and I ended up destroying some machine he had that he was going to use, thus putting a stop to his plans. During our exploits in stopping Brandon, Bobby and I came across a late teens girl who ended up being Shawn's niece, while said girl was held hostage in Brandon's old office at his old workplace."

"…So you saved the beloved niece of a villainous info broker," Aizawa remarked, "And as such said broker would be more agreeable to help you." A single nod from the male Ace twin was all the response that the underground hero needed.

…

Shawn made his way out of the warehouse he was doing some small issues of business in, basically selling some info to a group consisting mostly of quirkless criminals, although said group did have a few low-level villains. The broker walked out of a door on the side of the warehouse and was in an alleyway located between the warehouse he came out of and one other warehouse. Walking through said alleyway, Shawn made his way out into some manner of parking lot, where his car would be waiting.

"(Shawn,)" a voice familiar to the broker called out, making him stop in his tracks. It was a voice that Shawn was familiar with, a voice that he owed a great deal to. Turning around, Shawn saw Aggro Ace, one of the two men that he could never truly begin to repay for what good they had done for him by saving the life of his beloved niece. To Shawn's piqued interest, the Samurai Hero was accompanied by four other individuals, one of which clearly possessed some manner of mutation-type quirk.

Holding his right hand out in a gesture of greeting, Shawn said, "(Top of the mornin' to ya, Sengoku. I hope that you and Desperado are doing well.)" There was a very strong, clear hint of Ireland in the broker's words. Gesturing to Aggro's companions, Shawn asked, "(These four here are certainly some rather interesting individuals that you've befriended. Might I ask what business you have with them, as well as me since you've clearly sought me out?)"

"(Earlier today,)" Aggro began, "(A pair of men attempted to murder a girl by the name of Ochaco Uraraka. It's clear that both men knew who she was and specifically targeted her. My companions here are two of Uraraka's teachers and two of her classmates. Me and a few others are helping them track down the men who tried to kill Uraraka so we can bring them in for questioning.)" Pointing to Shawn, the male Ace twin said, "(I know that no such business can occur here in Royal Woods without you hearing of it, so we want what you know.)"

Holding up his hands in a gesture to show he wasn't going to resist in any way, Shawn said, "(I do, in fact, have a few bits of info on that. However, let me first say that I in no way provided anything that would have helped those men with their goal.)"

Aizawa, as he was giving Shawn a serious look, said in a very serious, no-nonsense, demanding tone, "(Explain.)"

Gesturing to Aggro and his companions, Shawn said, "(A pair of men sought me out as they heard that there was going to be some manner of field trip where a group of high schoolers from Japan's top hero high school, U.A., would come here to Royal Woods. They also heard that a girl would be among said field trip, and that they sought to murder her on behalf of the man that hired them to do his dirty work for him.)"

As the heroes stood there listening, the broker continued, "(They asked me for what info I knew, even offering slightly more than I would have normally charged them. However, I did not make the sale as I didn't have the information that they were looking to buy.)" Gesturing to the heroes, the broker said, "(Believe you me. All I know on the subject is what they told me when they tried to buy info I didn't have, what you all told me now, and what I've heard through hearsay since news of an attempted murder broke out earlier.)"

Aizawa, with a look of consideration on his face, remarked as he held his right hand over his chin, "(So someone took a hit out on Uraraka. The question is who, and for what reason.)"

"(There's…one other thing,)" Shawn said, getting the attention of the heroes, "(I'm not sure how much this will help you and your friends here Sengoku, but the two men that tried to buy info from me said something about one of the persons in their target's group being an untouchable, and that by no means could they bring any harm to said person. Their talk of a quote unquote 'untouchable' had piqued my interest so I tried asking about it, but they refused to give me any information on that matter. I don't even know if this 'untouchable' that they were talking about is male or female.)"

"(An untouchable?)" Shoji asked, his interest very much piqued. The same could be said of the interest of everyone else in his party.

Gently shaking his head, Shawn said, "(I am serious when I say that I am telling you all that I know on the matter. I've got something of an itching curiosity to find out more on the matter myself, and I'm not even expecting to make money on this endeavor.)" Gesturing to Aggro, Shawn said, "(I'll contact you if I get any more info, Sengoku.)"

Nodding in understanding, Aggro said, "(I'll shoot what bits I gather to you if it will help in your search for more on the men who tried to kill Aizawa's student.)" The broker nodded once in thanks and acknowledgement before he took his leave as Aggro and the others were done asking him for what he knew. "I could tell he was being fully honest when he was telling us what we just got from him," Aggro said to the others as they all slipped back to using Japanese, "But we do have at least a little bit more on those men who tried to kill Uraraka."

"Like how it turns out that they were hired to do it by someone wanting them to do his dirty work for him," Yaoyorozu remarked, "It's rather similar to what I've been suspecting this whole time. There's also that bit that the info broker mentioned on there being an untouchable that the two men aren't allowed to do anything to." With a look of consideration on her face, Yaoyorozu continued, "But that's it. We have no idea who this 'untouchable' is, nor did we even get the identity of at least one of the men who tried to kill Uraraka."

"But we at least have something more to work with," Aizawa pointed out, "Anyway, we ought to continue." The rest of the party all nodded in agreement with the underground hero as they all followed him out of the alleyway. Aizawa even gave a passing remark that he'd probably give extra credit to Yaoyorozu and Shoji since they were (technically) helping him with a job that he would normally do in his line of work as a pro hero.

* * *

Back at the hotel that 1-A was staying at during their field trip, Uraraka was walking to the dining hall on the ground floor, as she was in the mood for one of the complementary muffins that the dining hall had to offer. As to be expected, Kyoka, Hagakure, Carlota and Anastacia all accompanied her, with Hagakure getting away with streaking because she was invisible thus no one could actually _see_ her naked body.

"(I'm guessing that you just want a snack to settle your nerves?)" Carlota asked as she turned her head to address the gravity girl, getting a nod in the affirmative from Uraraka in the process. Nodding once in understanding, the Hispanic girl remarked, "(That's understandable. I mean, there are guys after you with the intent to put you six feet under. How can anyone not be nervous about something like that?)"

Gulping nervously, Uraraka remarked, "(What I would like to know is _why_ those two men want to kill me. I mean, what did I even do to warrant them wanting to slit my-)"

"URARAKA LOOK OUT!" Hagakure yelled in Japanese, not wanting to waist any time, as she shoved Uraraka to the side somewhat violently. To Uraraka's surprise, shock and obvious fear, the two men from before, the ones that tried to murder her earlier, not only came back but had snuck into the hotel. It was because of Hagakure, being invisible thus the two men had no idea that she was even there, being on constant look out that Uraraka's life was saved a second time.

Anastacia and Carlota, having the two would-be killers in their sights, decided to activate their respective quirks. Both girls grew two feet in height and became notably bulkier with muscle. Carlota also grew a dark reddish orange fur all over her body as she started to resemble the mythical creature known as the Sasquatch. As for Anastacia, her ears became somewhat pointy and pig-like, her feet became like pig's feet, her nose turned into a pig's snout, and she even grew a curly pig's tail that hung over her rear end.

"(Those are some impressive transformation quirks,)" Kyoka remarked aloud as she made her earjacks stretch to her boots and plug into the speakers built into said boots, allowing her to fire sonic waves of sounds at the two killers.

Both killers, despite having years of experience in their profession, were caught unawares by the two girls using transformation quirks to grow in size, become immensely stronger physically and change in appearance somewhat. The two men were also not all that good in close-quarters combat, hence why they preferred sneak attacks. Not helping either men was how they were both getting hit by sonic waves from Kyoka.

"Damn it!" the first killer swore, "We failed to kill our target again! And right when our target wasn't anywhere near the untouchable, either!"

"That invisible girl who was wearing clothes earlier must be buck naked somewhere in the dining hall," the second killer remarked, "That's why neither of us had any idea she was here until she blew out cover!" The two killers were completely on the defensive, what with how they had to avoid two large, super-strong juggernauts trying to chase them, and sonic blasts from that punk-looking Japanese girl.

Due to all of the commotion that was being made in the hotel's dining hall, more and more of the hotel became aware that there was fighting going on there. In fact, soon after the fight started, Luna's and Sam's respective parties came running into the dining hall, from opposite ends. Upon seeing Carlota and Anastacia engaged in a fight with two men, and when Uraraka, upon seeing the newly arrived backup, identified the two men to said backup as the guys who tried to kill her earlier, Luna and Sam, along with their respective parties, rushed in to help.

Luna activated her quirk that Uraraka, Tsuyu and Hagakure saw in action earlier, becoming notably rather buff and muscular, thus adding a third big, strong bulky teenage girl to the mix that the two would-be killers had to deal with. Ronnie Anne and Chandler also transformed, but they both remained the same general size, with Chandler becoming a humanoid ferret and Ronnie Anne transforming into something that resembled the mythical goat eating monster of Mexican folklore known as the Chupacabra.

Sam, who stood in place at a distance, opened her mouth and shouted at the two would-be killers, firing sonic waves from her mouth similar to what both Kyoka and the pro hero Present Mic can do. Clyde, who saw that Uraraka got some sort of rug burn-like mark on her hand when she was shoved to the ground by Hagakure (there was a fine carpeting on the floor of the dining hall), took her aside and began using some sort of healing power to mend the burn mark.

The two would-be killers knew that they had to run, given that they were doing nothing but running around to avoid three large super-strong teenage girls, a ferret boy, a Chupacabra girl, and two teenage girls firing sonic waves at them. With so much opposition, the two men knew that they had to bail, lest they be captured and thus fail to carry out their job. However, there was no way that they were going to escape, not while one of the fastest runners in Royal Woods was charging right at the both of them, a bowie knife in his right hand and a pocket knife with a three-inch blade in his left.

Lincoln ran between the two fleeing would-be killers, leapt up, and cut the right and left cheeks of the first and second men respectively, drawing blood from both. As the two men flinched slightly upon being cut, Lincoln landed and came to a stop a few more feet away before turning to face the men. "(…Thanks for the snack,)" the sole Loud boy said as he looked at the men while he licked his blades, once each but one at a time, ingesting blood from both men.

"Eww," the first man said, "Did that kid just-" The first man stopped short as both he and the second man were suddenly overcome with total paralysis, collapsing onto the floor of the dining hall in the hotel.

As the two men laid on the floor in the hotel dining hall, the rest of the heroes came walking over, with various transformations being undone so that everyone returned to normal. "(Nice one little dude,)" Luna remarked as she shot her younger brother a thumbs up.

Gesturing to the two paralyzed men, Kyoka asked, "(Yeah, but what exactly did he do to capture the men who tried to kill Uraraka?)"

Pointing to Lincoln, Luna proceeded to explain, "(My little brother's quirk is called Vampiric Stun. If he ingests someone's blood, that person becomes completely paralyzed. The length of time for paralysis varies depending on amount of blood ingested as well as the blood's type, but our little sister Lisa did some experimenting and determined that the minimum time for Lincoln's quirk paralyzing someone is currently six-and-a-half minutes.)"

Nodding in agreement, Lincoln remarked, "(Lisa, in her research, also came across something about how there's this one villain who operated in Japan that has a quirk that's functionally similar to my Vampiric Stun. But that's just a bit of a fun fact as far as Lisa's concerned.)"

"(Well it's not unheard of for two completely unrelated persons to have similar quirks,)" Hagakure said as she put on a pair of gloves that were provided to her just now by Uraraka, "(I mean, your friend Sam here has a similar quirk to Hizashi-sensei and Kyoka. And there's no shortage of people with generic enhancing quirks, like speed boosts and strength boosts.)"

The others all nodded in agreement with the invisible girl. With all said and done, the teens and preteens began to gather up and hold onto the two would-be killers, with some of the girls going about contacting the groups that were still out at the moment to let them know the two men that tried to kill Uraraka were captured and that the gravity girl herself is safe. During all of this, Luna mentioned in passing how her and Lincoln's one younger sister, a gothic girl named Lucy, thought that Lincoln's quirk was absolutely wicked in the awesome sense.

* * *

Since the two Japanese would-be killers were working on a job in the United States, the folks from Japan wouldn't be able to do much until they were extradited back to Japan. As such, none of them would learn until much later all about what exactly was going on in the background with the two men. Even so, they were both captured and in police custody, and Uraraka was safe. In the end, that's all that mattered to everyone, the Japanese adults especially.

As a further boost to the morale of the field trip, the seven boys that were hospitalized because Mineta had used them as scapegoats to avoid a beating from Aggro were healed enough to be released. The Japanese adults and the rest of 1-A (aside from Mineta who was still stuck back at the hotel on house arrest) were all overjoyed to see Izuku and the others walk out on their own. Mitsuki even hugged the green-eyed boy in a manner that shoved his face right into her rather considerable assets.

"You're going to suffocate Deku like that," Bakugo pointed out dryly to his mother, getting the ashy-haired woman to release Izuku, "He just got out after taking a gold fire crescent projectile to the body. You don't want to send him back in for suffocation, do you?"

"Your son has a point, Mitsuki," Hizashi pointed out, "Also, keep in mind that we're here in the United States right now, so you may want to hold off on showing the little dude some lovin' until we get ourselves back to Japan." Mitsuki, with a somewhat pouty expression, conceded the point and resolved to wait until everyone was back in Japan.

Nodding in confirmation once he saw that everyone and everything was ready, Aizawa said, "Well, this field trip ended up taking a completely different turn that what was set up, but either way, I'd say that it was a rousing success, all things considered." Gesturing for everyone to follow him, the underground hero said, "Well anyway, let's get back to the hotel so we can pack our shit and get the hell out of here. I don't know about all of you, but I for one am looking to get back to Japan ASAP."

All of Aizawa's students, as well as the other Japanese adults, all agreed with Aizawa, saying that going back home sounded pretty appealing to them. They first had to return to the hotel to take care of things such as packing and checking out. They also had to gather Mineta, who was still in rather considerable trouble for the stunt that he pulled while on the field trip. Aizawa was serious when he said that, upon class 1-A's return to U.A., he'd hold a vote in class before he would figure out what exactly to do in regards to Mineta.

Due to his past record in expelling students from U.A., Aizawa would have to ahead of time get Nezu's permission to expel the infamous pervert should the other nineteen in 1-A vote in favor of having Mineta kicked out. Sure, Aizawa still had the right, but since the underground hero had overused that right quite often, the quirked animal principal of U.A. thought that a limit had to be put on said right. It's part of why Aizawa didn't carry out a certain promise that he made during 1-A's very first day of school, not that the kids had to know that. Either way, all was said and done in Royal Woods, and without anything else keeping them there, class 1-A and the Japanese adults all took the next flight back home to Japan, all of them being all the richer in experience for their time in the United States.

END, CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Author's notes;

In the next chapter, everyone will be back in Japan, but before Mineta can receive his very much due punishment for what he did while everyone was in the States, either house arrest and extra duties at the dorms for the rest of the year or straight up expulsion from U.A., a few things have to happen first.

If one thinks that the exploits of class 1-A in Royal Woods was crazy, then wait until they see what will happen _after_ everyone gets back home but before a decision is made on what Mineta's punishment will end up being. Let's just say that there will be some big happening that will occur in Japan. A happening that will be of a rather…_monstrous_…nature. A happening that will be so great that other realms may or may not end up getting involved. It's still a fair bit of a ways off, as the antagonists will still need a bit of time to prepare, but that _does_ give me time to bring back someone (well, technically a few someones) from a short while ago and give them some much-needed spotlight and development.

Anyway, this is officially the last chapter in the 'Crossover Field Trip arc', which means that the next chapter will be the first in this story's third arc, which I am calling the 'Monster War arc'. The real action for said arc won't really begin in the next chapter, but the next chapter will still have some action nonetheless because, like I said, a certain someone will be coming back for something that I had planned for quite some time.


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter seventeen: Sympathy for a Devil

"It's great to have you and your brats back in Japan, Aizawa," Sekijiro said as he, along with Aizawa, another man and a teenage girl that looked to be barely fifteen years of age, had a bit of an early lunch at a relatively high-end restaurant that was located a few blocks from U.A. The man that was dining with Aizawa and Sekijiro was the person paying that was for the meal that the three men and the teenage girl were having.

The man was roughly the same age as Aizawa; he was slim and fair skinned, had long black hair similar to Aizawa but it wasn't anywhere near as unkempt-looking, a clean shaven face (another point over the underground hero), and he wore a dark-bluish long-sleeved shirt under a yellow t-shirt that had black sleeves, a pair of baggy cargo shorts that was of a similar color to his long-sleeved shirt also the legs of the shorts ended a few inches past his knees, black socks that were long enough to disappear up into the legs of the shorts, and a pair of black shoes.

As for the teenage girl, she was also slim and fair-skinned, and her bob cut hair, similar in style and length to Uraraka's hair, was a bright, light shade of green. She wore a white sleeveless shirt over a long-sleeved shirt that was of a similar shade of green as her hair, a white skirt that reached an inch or so past her knees, green knee socks and white shoes with green soles and light, bright red shoelaces. She also wore a simple charm necklace with the charm being of a similar shade of red as her shoelaces. A semi-transparent, thirty-two ounce red water bottle with a white flip cap was sitting near the girl's plate.

The man that was dining with/paying for Aizawa and Sekijiro nodded in agreement with the pro hero Vlad King. "I have to agree," the man said, a self-amused looking smirk on his face, "It's been far too long since you and I have last had a chance to talk it up, old friend."

The underground hero, turning his attention to the man, returned the self-amused smile. "After all that I had to deal with while Hizashi, the two volunteer parents and I were leading my homeroom class's recent field trip to the United States," Aizawa began, "I've been rather busy." Gesturing to the man, Aizawa continued, "You yourself have also been rather busy, Loukar, given that you're the chief of the advisory panel for the commission's president."

The man, identified as Loukar, nodded in agreement. "Me and a few of my fellow panel members are trying to convince lady president that more ought to be put into investigating the various threats we've been picking up thanks to various heroes working undercover for the commission, threats that aren't directly related to the activities of the League of Villains, or that group that they formed after supposedly merging with the Meta Liberation Army."

"Well out of all of the members of that panel, you ought to have the most say," Sekijiro remarked, "After all, you're not only the chief of said panel, but you're also the only one who is a licensed pro hero." Loukar nodded again in agreement; it is true that Loukar is a licensed pro hero, although an injury he received to his right leg, where he lost his leg from the knee down thus requiring him to use a prosthetic, made him more or less unable to continue doing hero work. He was still able to get his current job, though, and as he's still technically licensed as a pro hero, he had a bit more freedom than other members of the advisory panel.

Gesturing to Loukar again, Sekijiro continued, "If anything, you being a pro hero ought to give you additional weight in convincing lady president in making the right moves in regards to making sure the public is protected from any and all threats, even if some of said threats aren't the doing of villains."

Letting out a resigned sigh, Loukar remarked, "Well she thinks that we only have to worry about threats posed by criminals and quirked villains. One of our undercover workers uncovered information on this one fellow called Hirajo who, despite not having a quirk, is still a powerful individual who poses a very real danger, not to mention how this Hirajo fellow supposedly has an army of large, rather muscular hulking brutes comparable in size to some of those horrible Nomu monsters that were created by the League of Villains."

"You…you cannot be serious," Aizawa said, a bit of a shocked look on both his face and the face of Sekijiro, "And the president is staunchly refusing to make a move concerning this?"

Nodding twice in confirmation, Loukar explained, "If what the spy told me is true, then this Hirajo fellow is technically not even human. Also, his army of Nomu-like brutes aren't actually Nomus, and none of them are known villains or criminals."

Scoffing in an annoyed tone, Aizawa said, "Geez, and here I thought that my student Mineta was a reckless idiot."

Loukar arched a wry eyebrow when his old friend brought up that subject. "…He's the pervert boy in your class that pissed of a Sacred Heritage quirk user during your class's recent field trip to the States, right?" the handicapped pro hero asked.

Aizawa nodded once in the affirmative as he explained, "Principal Nezu is still considering my request to expel Mineta from U.A., but other works keep him busy at the moment." Gesturing to the teenage girl sitting next to Loukar, Aizawa said, "I would much rather have a student like your protégé Eunice here in my class than that perverted little bastard. As a matter of fact, at this point I'd love to trade Mineta _out_ and trade Eunice _in_."

"Yeah, she's a real sweetheart," Sekijiro remarked. With a look of curiosity on his face, Sekijiro asked, "Hey Loukar, didn't you say that you actually had to take in Eunice here as a foster child because of what her biological mother tried to do a few months ago?"

With a mildly grim look on his face, Loukar said, "…Yes, that woman was stripped of her custody of Eunice after what she tried to do, which is why I'm glad that woman was arrested." With a hint of sincere amusement entering his expression, the handicapped pro hero said, "I'm actually rather fond of having Eunice here as my foster daughter."

"I hope that you know what you're getting yourself into," Aizawa remarked, "Taking in a foster child who has autism."

"Which is part of the reason why I'm looking to have Eunice enroll into Ketsubutsu Academy High School, which is the hero high school that I graduated from," Loukar remarked, "It's the only one here in Japan that has a department dedicated to working with special needs students. Not even U.A., the best ranked hero high school in Japan, can claim to have that."

Sighing in a resigned tone, Aizawa said, "Unfortunately, U.A. doesn't have such a department because we don't have any special needs students. You see, with the exception of students who are recommended thus they get to take the recommended students' entrance exam, _every_ potential student looking to get into U.A. has to take the exact same entrance exam."

Letting out a mildly resigned sigh, the underground hero continued as he gestured to Loukar, "Nezu runs things this way because he wants to, as he puts it, 'put all potential students on equal footing with one another'. Mind you, wanting to level the playing field so that everyone has a fair and equal chance sounds good on paper, but Nezu is forgetting that the practical portion of the entrance exam is very much geared in the advantage of students with combat-oriented quirks, so those with non-combat oriented quirks, such as my own protégé Shinso, are placed in a very unfair disadvantage."

"The standard entrance exam is also the reason why U.A. has no special needs students, as either one or both portions has a tendency to trip up said kids," Sekijiro remarked, "Since no special needs students have ever gotten into U.A. because they have to take the same entrance exam as every other student trying to get in, there's no special needs department at U.A."

"But my alma mater is different," Loukar remarked, "All that Eunice needs in order to get into Ketsubutsu Academy is for me to bring the necessary information to the principal and have him do the necessary paperwork to enroll her." The teen girl at the table, paying no attention to the conversation the adult men were having, was single-mindedly focused on her meal, which was some chocolate cake type item ordered from the dessert section of the restaurant's menu.

Gesturing to Loukar to get his attention, Aizawa said, "By the way, didn't you say that we were going to be paying Ketsubutsu Academy a visit today?"

Smirking a bit in a self-amused manner, Loukar replied, "Yeah, as a matter of fact. Ketsubutsu Academy is hosting a tournament where their students will take part in one-on-one fights, similar to what you guys at U.A. had during your Sports Festival a while ago." Gesturing to Eunice, the handicapped pro her continued, "Eunice is going to be entered as a guest competitor representing Ketsubutsu Academy, even though she's not yet technically a student there."

"Do you know how many Ketsubutsu Academy students, counting your foster daughter here, will be taking part?" Sekijiro asked.

Nodding once in the affirmative, Loukar replied, "From what I was told by one of the teachers at Ketsubutsu, this one lady named Emi Fukukado, a total of eight students counting Eunice will be representing Ketsubutsu against the eight students from the visiting hero high school, that Vulcan High place that you of U.A. went up against in another recent tournament, that are taking part."

Aizawa arched an eyebrow out of piqued curiosity. "…Some of Joke's brats, as well as your foster daughter, are going up against those kids from Vulcan High?"

"…I saw recorded videos of all of the matches from that tournament, Aizawa," Loukar remarked in a wry tone of understanding, having picked up the hints of concern in the underground hero's tone, "I can understand that you'd be worried about the students of Ketsubutsu Academy, as well as Eunice." With a single nod, Loukar continued, "But you can rest assured that Ms. Joke trains her students well. And since I've personally worked with Eunice, I can safely say that she won't be a pushover for the Vulcan High kids."

Both Aizawa and Sekijiro exchanged looks with each other. Vulcan High, led by Principal Kagura Hojo, had a bit of a reputation as the self-proclaimed greatest rival to U.A. Despite how it's a lower-ranked hero high school compared to U.A., Vulcan High still had some students of considerable skill and power, something that Aizawa and Sekijiro had to admit. In fact, the both of them were amazed that some of their school's own were the ones that stood in first, second and third from that tournament, taking home all the medals, because Vulcan High brought with them some really strong students, one of which was still on the minds of the two teachers.

…Even so, Aizawa and Sekijiro had to respect the confidence that the handicapped hero had in his old alma mater. The both of them figured that going with him to watch the tournament between Ketsubutsu and Vulcan would still be an interesting contest to see either way, and were both glad for the opportunity. Aizawa was particularly keen on watching the performance of Loukar's foster daughter Eunice, as she's the first hero high school student (well, potential at the moment) that he's aware of who is autistic.

The underground hero wanted to see evidence that working out deals for special needs students was a better alternative than having them do the standard entrance exam like everyone else. Aizawa also wanted the practical portion of the standard entrance exam revised to give students with non-combat oriented quirks a better shot. But that's another subject for another time, as he and Sekijiro had a tournament at Ketsubutsu Academy to go watch.

* * *

Aizawa and Sekijiro sat in the bleachers with Loukar and Ms. Joke as they and a few other adults watched the first match of the first round of the Ketsubutsu-v-Vulcan tournament. Both of the U.A. teachers were a bit surprised to see that eight students from Vulcan High that were entered in the tournament were the very same eight from the tournament against U.A. from a while ago. As a matter of fact, a very familiar Vulcan High boy was in the first round's first match against that Tatami Nakagame girl from Ketsubutsu Academy.

"Burning Mark!" Akuma Giratina yelled as he conjured black flames in the form of the number 666 before he threw it at Tatami, striking her dead-on and making her cry out in a bit of pain as she stumbled back a few steps. As the Satanist of Vulcan High proceeded to create another attack to throw at Tatami, Aizawa and Sekijiro were both on the edge of their seats.

Looking down in the arena as Akuma threw a second Burning Mark that Tatami dodged this time by using her Telescopic quirk, Sekijiro remarked, "I can't believe that Vulcan High brought that villain boy along to another tournament against another hero high school."

Ms. Joke, upon hearing Vlad King's comment, turned to face him, giving the prop hero a curious, mildly questioning look. "…How is that kid a villain?" Ms. Joke asked, "I mean, sure, he's coming off as a bit unsettling to a lot of people with strict conventional beliefs because he's a Satanist, but I don't see how that straight up makes him a villain."

Letting out a resigned sigh, Aizawa explained as he turned to face Ms. Joke, "Sekijiro is still upset that, during the recent tournament where Vulcan High students went up against our brats over at U.A., Akuma brutalized two of Sekijiro's girls in his homeroom in the first and second rounds respectively."

Nodding once in understanding, Ms. Joke said, "Yeah, Loukar showed me the videos of all of the fights from that tournament. I swear, that magic horse girl looked like she got the worst of it."

"Magic horse girl?" Sekijiro repeated in a mildly surprised and rather confused tone, then added when he turned to face Ms. Joke, "You mean Tsunotori?"

"As brutal as Akuma was in those matches," Ms. Joke began to reply, "That doesn't make him a villain either. There are a number of heroes who can be rather brutal to the villains that they take down in fights."

Aizawa nodded in agreement, remarking, "Just like Endeavor." That made him chuckle a bit to himself, not to mention how it drew chuckling out of both Sekijiro and Ms. Joke.

Shooting Aizawa a thumbs-up, Ms. Joke remarked, "Okay Aizawa, that was a good one." Giving her head a gentle shake, the Smile Hero continued, "What is _not_ a good one, though, is making a bunch of unwarranted accusations towards a hero-in-training just because he just so happens to come off as unsettling to some, and he also uses brutality from time to time, something that actual pros have been known to-"

Ms. Joke was cut off when, down on the arena platform where Tatami was fighting Akuma, the Ketsubutsu girl held both of her hands up in the air in a gesture of surrender as she shouted in a somewhat tired tone, "I yield!" Standing about ten or so feet away from Tatami was Akuma, who had both of his hands engulfed in black flames as he was about to use Blazing Pentagram. Akuma, upon hearing and seeing Tatami's surrendering, willed the black flames engulfing his hands to go out, and then straightened himself out, simply standing there as he kept his eyes on his opponent. "I…" Tatami said as she panted a bit out of exhaustion, "…I yield."

Aizawa and Sekijiro both took note of how Akuma was preparing to launch an attack, but stopped short when his opponent suddenly surrendered. They also took note of how Akuma's hostility dropped significantly. A male Ketsubutsu Academy teacher who was acting as referee first confirmed that Tatami was surrendering before announcing it and declaring that Akuma was the winner of the match.

"…He didn't try to push anything when that Tatami girl was surrendering," Sekijiro remarked, his tone suggesting that his interest was piqued.

"Well it's standard procedure in matches like this between two hero high schools that when an opponent surrenders, the winning student is supposed to accept and not continue attacking," Aizawa pointed out, "Attacking a surrendering opponent is normally grounds for disqualification from tournaments such as this."

Gesturing down where Akuma stood, Sekijiro said when he turned to face Aizawa, "Yeah, but he didn't look pissed off or anything when his opponent gave up before he straight up defeated her in their fight. He looked perfectly okay with accepting his opponent's surrender." Gently shaking his head, Sekijiro remarked, "And here I thought that he was the kind of kid who wants to bring all fights to a straight up finish."

"He's more than what you assume, isn't he?" a female voice said from behind the pro heroes, making them all turn to see a sharply dressed blonde woman sitting behind them. This woman was fair-skinned, had stylishly cut yellow-blonde hair that reached the base of her neck, and had a noticeable amount of weight on her, comparable to what Inko Midoriya had. This blonde woman wore a black long-sleeved dress top with matching skirt that reached her knees, a light purple dress shirt worn under the suit top, shiny black dress shoes, one simple pearl earring in each earlobe, a band ring on her left ring finger, and a simple silver women's chain necklace around her neck.

Letting out a resigned sigh, the woman continued, "Granted, I wish that the girl that my school's student Akuma fought didn't surrender so that Akuma could show off more of his moves, more of his power." With a hint of disappointment in her expression, the woman said, "Surrenders are not a very lively end to matches such as these. At least if you ask me."

"Oh, you're Vulcan High's principal, aren't you?" Loukar asked as he arched a wry eyebrow upon seeing the woman.

Nodding twice in the affirmative, the woman replied, "Indeed I am. Kagura Hojo, at your service." Giving Loukar a look of piqued interest, Kagura continued, "Aren't you Loukar Raioh, chief of the advisory panel for the Hero Public Safety Commission?"

"I am," Loukar replied, "I'm here to watch the tournament as Ketsubutsu Academy is my alma mater. I'm also aiming to have my foster daughter Eunice, who is entered in the tournament as a guest competitor representing Ketsubutsu, enroll in said school when it's time for her to do so."

Kagura went a bit wide-eyed upon hearing Loukar say that he had a foster child that he was looking to enroll into Ketsubutsu. After all, as the chief of the Hero Public Safety Commission's advisory panel, the only person in the commission that outranks Loukar is the president herself. Even so, the handicapped pro hero was still a very affluent person in the hero community (not to mention _very_ wealthy), and having his foster child attend any hero high school would give said school a lot of renown.

Clearing her throat, Kagura remarked, "Sure, I bet that you would be interested in seeing your daughter attend the school that you graduated from yourself, Mr. Raioh. But Ketsubutsu isn't the only hero high school in Japan, you know. I'm just putting this out there, but Vulcan High _is_ a higher-ranked hero high school than Ketsubutsu. I assure you that I and the rest of the Vulcan High staff would not only welcome Eunice with open arms, but we can do so much more for her than what Ketsubutsu could as we have more resources."

Giving Kagura a wry look, Loukar pointed out, "I understand that your school has a higher rank than my old alma mater. However, what Ketsubutsu has that Vulcan High and all other hero high schools in Japan does not have is a department that helps and works with special needs students, something that Eunice will be needing given that she's autistic."

The principal of Vulcan High went a bit wide-eyed in surprise, caught a bit off guard by what the handicapped pro hero had just explained about his foster child. Loukar also pulled the right leg of his long shorts up a bit, revealing a metal rod that was part of his prosthetic right leg. "The good people of Ketsubutsu not only already have the resources to help those with mental and or physical handicaps," Loukar went on, "But they also have a reputation of being one of the best high schools in Japan as a whole in helping out in said cases." Dropping the leg of his long shorts that he was pulling up, Loukar said, "If I had my crippling injury back when I was still a student here rather than get it a few months before I was hired to the advisory panel in the commission, I have no doubt that they would have helped me."

Both Aizawa and Sekijiro looked a bit amused with how Loukar was able to humble Kagura the way that he did. Aizawa also took out a mini spiral bound notepad and a pen to write down a note to remind himself to begin discussions at U.A. to not only set up a proper department to assist special needs students, but to revise the entrance exams to make accommodations for said students if need be.

Aizawa also added a note on how the practical portion of the exam had to be revised to give students with non-combat oriented quirks a better shot, and he underlined this note no less than three times. But that's another point for another time.

* * *

The rest of the first round matches for the Ketsubutsu-v-Vulcan tournament went by without too much outlandishness. Loukar's foster daughter Eunice, who has a notably powerful telekinesis quirk, defeated the Vulcan High chinchilla girl. The unnamed Ketsubutsu student with the mask that resembled the bone helmet worn by a certain creature defeated the Vulcan High basset hound boy. Yo Shindo ended up defeating Sakaki Yamamaya, Shikkui Makabe lost to Yuki Hojo (seeing her son win made Kagura cheer a bit in a bragging manner), and Itejiro Toteki lost to Takeshi Kanemaru. All in all, a total of four students each from Ketsubutsu (Eunice was counted as one) and Vulcan made it into the second round of the tournament.

"Both of the competing schools seem to be evenly matched at this point," Aizawa remarked as, with his aforementioned mini notepad, he was keeping track of who all was left in the ongoing tournament between Ketsubutsu and Vulcan.

With a 'humph' that was in a self-amused tone, Sekijiro turned to face Ms. Joke and said, "Back in the tournament between Vulcan and U.A., five of U.A.'s kids got past round one with three from Vulcan, whereas here four from Vulcan got past with four from Ketsubutsu, one of which is technically not a student at the school." Giving the Smile Hero a self-amused smirk, Sekijiro said, "You got your work cut out for you here, it seems."

"Oh ha," Ms. Joke replied, the sarcasm in her tone obvious as she wasn't amused by Sekijiro pointing out an apparent superiority that U.A. had over Ketsubutsu. Aizawa gave Sekijiro a fairly firm backhand smack against his right bicep, telling his co-worker off for trying to get into a pissing contest with a teacher from another school. "Either way, the tournament is shaping up to be one hell of a show," Ms. Joke remarked, "I can't wait to see what round two will be like."

"A shame that Loukar had to bail because he was summoned to an emergency meeting with the rest of the advisory panel in the commission," Sekijiro said, "He'll miss getting to see his foster daughter have her time in the spotlight."

Aizawa nodded in agreement. "Well it's a good thing for Eunice than two men working in the staff of Loukar's mansion are here to keep an eye on her for him," the underground hero pointed out, "I would think that it would throw her for one hell of a loop if there wasn't anyone here to keep an eye on her."

Ms. Joke, with a look of piqued interest on her face, pointed down into the arena as she said, "Speaking of that sweetheart, she's just stepped up to the arena platform since she was selected to fight in the first match of this round." Curious, both Aizawa and Sekijiro turned their attention to the arena and, sure enough, saw that Eunice was on the arena platform. However, both men, Sekijiro especially, were surprised to see who the autistic girl was paired up to fight against.

The male Ketsubutsu Academy teacher who was acting as referee for the tournament held up a hand as he declared, "This match will be between Eunice Sirknight representing Ketsubutsu and Akuma Giratina from Vulcan High. Now then." Swinging his hand downwards in a chopping motion, the male Ketsubutsu Academy teacher declared, "BEGIN!"

…

The match between Eunice and Akuma went on for a while. Eunice had to put her telekinesis quirk into overdrive as she fought against the Satanist of Vulcan High. She tried to use a move where she used a blast of her telekinesis to simply push Akuma as hard as she could away from her, but Akuma, holding his right hand behind him with the palm aimed at the ground, unleashed his Hail Satan attack, with the force of his unholy move acting as a jet burst that let him push back to an extent.

When Eunice's telekinetic push stopped, Akuma instantly unleashed a Devil's Breath, which flew right at Eunice, making her jump to the side to avoid it, but she was caught up in a Hell Burst that Akuma sent right at her. Eunice was soon hit by a Blazing Pentagram, but she was able to use her telekinesis quirk to block and dispel a Burning Mark. She tried once again with a telekinetic push, but Akuma was able to keep it from pushing him back by throwing up a Hellfire Wall that intercepted the attack, although the wall of unholy black flames was pushed a bit by Eunice's power.

Akuma threw another Burning Mark as he prepped a Devil's Breath to unleash immediately afterwards. Once again Eunice blocked and dispelled the flames in the shape of that evil number, but she was hit by Akuma's breath of black flames. The autistic girl stumbled a bit as she tried to regain her footing after having been hit by the black flames from Akuma's mouth, but it was as she tried to regain her footing that Akuma rushed in and, with his left hand, grabbed Eunice by her throat and lifted her up with just his left hand.

"Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me," Sekijiro swore as he, Aizawa and Ms. Joke watched as Akuma aimed the palm of his right hand at Eunice's torso, as the scene was eerily similar to what the Satanist of Vulcan High did when he brutalized Pony during the tournament between Vulcan and U.A. "He's going to do _that_ to another innocent girl as well," Sekijiro said as his eyes widened more and more, "And one who's a special needs student, no less?!"

Down in the arena, Akuma kept his eyes on Eunice, watching her struggle as she tried to get him to let go of her. Akuma kept note of the look of refusal to give up in Eunice's eyes as his right hand became engulfed in black flames. The Satanist's brows were furrowed a bit, giving his look a hint of sinister anger and hatred that would make many feel unsettled. The black flames that were engulfing Akuma's right hand were billowing ominously as he was continuing to look the struggling Eunice in the eyes.

…Suddenly, however, Akuma's brows became much less furrowed as he said more to himself than he did to anyone else, "No." None of the adults watching the tournament could hear what the Satanist had said, but they did see it when the black flames that engulfed his right hand faded out. Akuma then turned around while still holding Eunice up as he was, then walked to one of the edges of the arena platform and, while still standing on the arena platform himself, sat Eunice down on her feet outside of said platform.

Holding up his right hand, the male Ketsubutsu Academy teacher who was acting as referee for the tournament declared, "Eunice Sirknight is out of bounds! The winner is Akuma Giratina!" Down in the arena, as a few medics rushed over to check on Eunice, Akuma merely turned around and walked away, to go join his fellow Vulcan High students. As things were being set up for the next match of the second round, the adults that were watching the tournament were all surprised by Akuma's actions just now, in various ways.

"He…" Sekijiro remarked, "…He actually just rang his opponent out of bounds." Scoffing, Sekijiro remarked when he turned to face Aizawa and Ms. Joke, "Why the hell didn't he do that when he had Tsunotori in a similar position when he fought her during the tournament between U.A. and Vulcan?"

"I don't know what to tell you," Ms. Joke replied, "But I did see his expression change a little bit when he decided to cancel whatever super move that he was about to unleash on that poor girl at point blank range."

Aizawa had also observed the same thing that Ms. Joke had observed about Akuma. Turning his head slightly, the underground hero noted that Kagura, who was too focused on the tournament thus she didn't see him look at her, looked rather unamused with how her school's student simply rang his opponent out of bounds. In fact, if he didn't know any better, Aizawa suspected that Kagura actually _wanted_ to see Akuma straight up defeat Eunice on the arena platform.

* * *

The rest of the round two matches went by without much fanfare, other than Yo Shindo's match where he defeated the Vulcan High girl who could create a limited number of duplicates of herself. Yo's match was notable for round two as it was the only match of that round where a Ketsubutsu student won and moved on to round three; the other three students that made it to the third round were Akuma (obviously), Yuki and Takeshi.

Aizawa felt that Yo, given his skill and power, could only really be challenged in the third round if he was paired to fight Akuma; the underground hero felt that the vibration quirk boy would be able to handily deal with either Takeshi or Yuki. As for Kagura, she was already counting in her head the number of medals that Vulcan High could potentially bring home from this tournament. Her school, given how many of its students made it to round three, was guaranteed two medals. The principal of Vulcan also felt confident that her son Yuki would be one of the students of her school that will be winning one of those medals.

It's a mother thing.

The first match of round three was announced, and it slated Yuki against Takeshi. The two boys used their respective quirks to try striking at each other while simultaneously trying to evade hits. Sekijiro and Ms. Joke both were mildly impressed with the similar strategies, but Aizawa had a sinking suspicion that the two boys were merely not so much facing each other in earnest, but rather having the equivalent of a dance with each other before one of them forfeited the match to the other. The underground hero was not sure about how things were done at Vulcan, but such a plan between two students was _not_ tolerated at U.A., at least as far as Aizawa was concerned.

Aizawa's suspicions were further confirmed when Takeshi surrendered the match to Yuki a few minutes after it started, stating that he was getting exhausted. Aizawa wanted to call shenanigans on that, and hearing bragging coming from Kagura who sat behind him and the others about how her son is clearly one of Vulcan's top students made Aizawa suspect that nepotism was a factor in the principal's son getting the round three win.

The underground hero pushed those thoughts out of his mind when he and the other adults watching the tournament focused on the match between Yo and Akuma. Unlike with what he suspected went on between Takeshi and Yuki, Aizawa could tell full well that Yo and Akuma were going all out against one another. Aizawa, as well as Sekijiro, could tell that the Satanist hero-in-training was using levels of brutality and violence comparable to what he had whipped out against Bakugo during the U.A.-v-Vulcan tournament a while ago.

However, the vibration quirk boy, much like Bakugo before him, was actually putting up enough of a fight to make Akuma believe that going to such lengths was warranted. The match between the Satanist of Vulcan High and Ketsubutsu's last hope to win first place was by far the most action-packed match of the tournament, with both boys giving each other serious competition in their tournament match.

Eventually, however, Akuma was able to pull off the win when Yo, in a last ditch effort, put a lot of effort into a really big vibration he unleashed into the ground of the platform; even with the bit of built-up resistance he worked hard to achieve, Yo was stunned by how much effort he put into that big vibration, leaving him open to a Blazing Pentagram from Akuma, that was followed by a Devil's Breath which was what finally defeated Yo.

Kagura was putting on airs as her school was now guaranteed the first place medal from this tournament. The principal of Vulcan High bragged about the power of her school's students, and she even remarked about how she felt that her son Yuki was shoe-in to win first. "You do realize that he's facing his schoolmate Giratina, don't you?" Ms. Joke pointed out, "Don't you think it's a bit premature to say that your son will be the one to win the tournament as a whole?"

Shrugging indifferently, Kagura replied, "You're just upset that the last student that Ketsubutsu had in the tournament was knocked out, meaning that you guys won't be bringing home the gold." With a nod, Kagura added, "Besides, can you blame a mother for having such confidence in her children to succeed?" Yes, the principal of Vulcan had all the confidence in the world that her son would be the one to stand on the highest spot on the award podium.

She was _sure_ of it.

* * *

The adults that were watching the tournament turned their attention to the arena platform to watch the final match of the tournament, where Yuki and Akuma already stood facing one another. A self-assured, confident look was on Yuki's face, compared to the indifferent with a hint of pissed-off annoyed look on the face of the Satanist of Vulcan High. When the referee declared the match to begin, Akuma wasted no time in spewing a Devil's Breath right at Yuki, making him bounce up to avoid the unholy breath of black fire.

Yuki, although his eyes widened a bit in surprise, still kept himself calm. However, he was slowly starting to worry more and more as Akuma was clearly unleashing the brutality that he was known for from time to time. In fact, Akuma seemed more like a man possessed than the usually annoyed but still more or less dependable fellow schoolmate that Yuki was sure he was supposed to be. "Hey man, you got to take it easy," Yuki said, talking loud enough so that only Akuma could hear him, "I mean, this is just a match, you know. A match between _two students from the same school_."

Akuma did not respond to the son of his school's principal. Instead, the Satanist began throwing a barrage of Burning Marks at the conceited blonde boy. Yuki dodged the first couple attacks, but one of them clipped against Yuki's right shin as he was in midair, making him falter and land back down on the arena platform, where he was hit by a few more Burning Marks. When the last few Burning Marks he threw were flying into his opponent, Akuma quickly threw out a Hell Burst, which went on to hit Yuki, engulfing him in a blast of black flames that came up from the ground around him.

The adults watching the match between Yuki and Akuma were a bit surprised with how savage Akuma was being. Aizawa and Sekijiro took note of the look in Akuma's eyes, a look that seemed to hold more hatred than they did when Akuma had fought other opponents during the current tournament. Although the men were both distracted, Ms. Joke did see the look that was on Kagura's face, a look that was an even mix of great worry and great anger.

After Yuki was slammed by a Blazing Pentagram, Akuma rushed him, grabbed him by the collar of his suit top (Yuki, like everyone else in the tournament that had a hero outfit, wore his hero outfit) with his left hand, then aimed the palm of his right hand at Yuki as he unleashed a Hail Satan attack on Yuki at point blank range. The same tactic that Akuma used to defeat Pony back in the U.A.-v-Vulcan tournament, the same tactic that Akuma looked like he was about to use on Eunice before he suddenly decided to simply set her down out of bounds.

Only now the Satanist of Vulcan High was using said tactic on _one of his own_.

The relentless efforts of Akuma were simply too much for Yuki to take, so he was knocked unconscious. The referee made the obvious announcement that Akuma was the winner of not just that match, but of the Ketsubutsu-v-Vulcan tournament as a whole. The referee then announce that the match between Yo and Takeshi to determine third place would be held momentarily when both boys had been treated enough by a Ketsubutsu school nurse that had a healing quirk.

"…Well, there you have it, Hojo," Ms. Joke remarked, a hint of dry amusement in her tone as she turned to face Vulcan High's principal, "It really was too early to count your chickens before they hatched. Your son didn't end up winning first place after all." With a hint of indifference in her expression, the Smile Hero remarked with a hint of sarcasm in her tone, "Look on the bright side, though. Either way, your school ended up bringing home the first and second place wins. That ought to be good enough for anyone."

"I…" Kagura remarked, sounding a bit like she was trying to keep herself in check, "…Suppose that you have a point, Fukukado." Ms. Joke turned back around to look down into the arena with Aizawa and Sekijiro, so she didn't notice the hint of vengeful anger entering Kagura's face as she looked down into the arena herself, down where Akuma could be seen walking over to where some other Vulcan High students were waiting.

Regardless of the point that the Smile Hero made, it still wasn't good enough for Kagura. Not by a long shot, no. The principal of Vulcan High was rather cross with her satanic student, and for more than one reason. She intended to have a serious discussion with Akuma when everyone got back to Vulcan.

A discussion that would have a rather notable impact on the Satanist's future.

* * *

The following morning over at U.A. before classes had started, Aizawa and Sekijiro made their way over to Nezu's office, as there was something that the quirked animal principal wanted to discuss with them, something that had to do with a certain guest that he had in his office at the time and that Aizawa and Sekijiro would both get to meet as she and her parents were still in his office, discussing a few points of interest with him. Neither Aizawa nor Sekijiro had any idea who it was that Nezu was talking about, although it sounded strongly like a female student was being enrolled into U.A.

To the surprise of Aizawa and Sekijiro, when they entered Nezu's office, they noticed that the teenage girl sitting in a chair in front of Nezu's desk was Sakaki Yamamaya, the fat cat girl of Vulcan High. Sitting in chairs on either side of Sakaki were a fairly tall and slender man with cat-like ears and a cat-like tail comparable to what Sakaki had (on the girl's left) and a notably fat woman (on the girl's right).

"Hey, aren't you that Yamamaya girl that's been flirting with Aizawa's protégé?" Sekijiro asked as he and Aizawa recognized Sakaki, making her, the two adults with her and Nezu all turn to see him and the underground hero enter the office.

Nezu, with a hint of mild and casual amusement on his face, said, "Ah, there you two are." Gesturing to Sakaki, the quirked animal principal said to Aizawa and Sekijiro, "I'm currently working with Mr. and Mrs. Yamamaya here to work out the paperwork to finalize Sakaki's transfer from Vulcan to U.A." Both Aizawa and Sekijiro, with surprised looks on their faces, took a step each back out of shock.

"She's transferring to U.A.?" Aizawa asked, clearly surprised.

Sekijiro, crossing his arms over his chest when he regained some of his sense of self, remarked, "She's not doing this just so she can be closer to Aizawa's boy that she's smitten with, is she?"

Sakaki gently shook her head in the negative. "…No, I'm not wanting to transfer so I can be closer to Hitoshi," the fat cat girl replied, "Although that is a nice bonus, now that you mention it." Looking at the two hero course teachers, Sakaki explained, "I honestly can't stand being at Vulcan anymore. I'm constantly teased over being fat, even though it's a side effect of my quirk so I literally can't do anything about it."

"Ah yes, I suspected as such," Aizawa remarked in an understanding tone, "Many students here at U.A. have physical alterations to their bodies as a side effect of the quirks that they have, many of which are due to having mutation-type quirks but that's not necessarily the case." With a single nod, the underground hero continued, "Rest assured that such actions will not occur against you here at U.A. At least if others don't want detention."

"There's…something else," Sakaki remarked, her slight change in tone catching the attention of both Aizawa and Sekijiro, "Principal Hojo…she ran the place like a quasi-dictatorship. She cares more about gaining status and prestige than actually doing an actual job as principal, given how she has a liking for stocking the award cabinet at Vulcan with as much as much as possible, as a way to tell other hero high schools that Vulcan is better than them."

Scoffing in an incredulous tone, Sekijiro said as he gently shook his head, "And she has the gall to proclaim Vulcan as the top rival to U.A."

Nodding in somber agreement with the pro hero Vlad King, Sakaki continued, "Principal Hojo also favors winning glory through displays of raw power. During the tournament where we went up against U.A. students, Principal Hojo told us to straight up defeat any U.A. opponent that we were pitted against in the ring instead of ringing them out." Giving Sekijiro a guilty look, the fat cat girl said, "That's why Akuma brutalized that magic horse girl he fought when he already had her held up and beaten, even though he actually wanted to set her down out of bounds like he did with that Eunice girl he faced in the tournament against Ketsubutsu."

Both Aizawa and Sekijiro went wide-eyed with shock, Sekijiro especially so. "He…you're telling me that Giratina actually didn't want to brutalize Pony but only did so because Hojo had basically told him to?" Sekijiro nearly sputtered, shocked to hear what Vulcan's principal did.

Nodding in confirmation, Sakaki went on, "Yes, that's the gist of it. We had to straight up defeat any U.A. student we faced in the ring rather than put them out of bounds, as Principal Hojo said that defeating the students of this school straight up would give you guys more humiliation than if we rang U.A. students out. Similarly, we had to do the same to any Ketsubutsu student that we faced in the recent tournament against them." With a mildly unsure look on her face, Sakaki told the U.A. staff members, "Akuma told me in confidence that he was sincerely grateful to that Tatami girl who surrendered to him, as he hadn't quite worked up the will to defy the order from Principal Hojo to not ring out non-Vulcan opponents at the time."

Crossing his arms over his chest, Aizawa remarked, "I had a gut feeling that a lot of people…" giving Sekijiro a quick look, Aizawa added, "…Present company included…" turning his attention back to everyone as a whole, the underground hero finished by saying, "…Should have given Giratina the benefit of the doubt, just like Toshinori said should have been done." All of the adults in the room, along with the fat cat girl, all nodded in agreement. Sekijiro even looked a bit humbled, as well as a little ashamed of himself.

"Principal Hojo…" Sakaki went on, "…Also told us that if any of us faced Yuki in either tournament, we had to yield the match to him. My guess is that she didn't want Yuki to lose a match if there was something she could do to keep it from happening."

Scoffing in an annoyed, disgusted tone, Aizawa remarked, "And here I thought that the nepotism that Toshinori and Endeavor shows to Midoriya and Todoroki respectively was ridiculous." Giving the fat cat girl a look of wry wonder, Aizawa said, "I bet that Giratina put a real bee in Hojo's bonnet, as he not only decided to place Sirknight out of bounds instead of brutalizing her into defeat, but also decided not to let her special little guy win the match that they had."

Sakaki let out a resigned sigh, a look of somberness on her face. "…Yeah, Principal Hojo was not happy _at all_ with some of what Akuma did during the tournament against Ketsubutsu, even though he ended up winning first place, and a first place win for Vulcan was what Principal Hojo was hoping to get the whole time…"

(FLASHBACK)

"Why didn't you defeat her in the ring straight up, Akuma?!" Kagura scolded as she gave her Satanist student an earful. Other students from Vulcan High, such as Yuki who looked on with a clear look of amusement on his face and Sakaki who looked on with concern, watched at their school's principal chewed Akuma out. "You could have shown more of our school's power, more of our glory with a straight up win!" Kagura ranted on, "But instead you decided to place your opponent out of bounds!"

The Satanist was giving his principal a dry, unamused look. "…Didn't you say that you want to convince that girl's dear old dad to enroll her at Vulcan?" Akuma asked, making Kagura take pause. Seeing that he had his principal in a position where he could argue back, Akuma went on, "Do you think daddy dearest would willingly enroll his kid at Vulcan if he saw me do to his kid what I did to that blonde horse girl from U.A.?" Crossing his arms over his chest, the Satanist added, "By the way, I'm still pissed that I had to do that because you gave me strict orders to not hold back if I fought any U.A. students, that I had to win by straight up defeating my opponents rather than simply ring them out."

The principal of Vulcan High regained a bit of her sense of self, and she was not about to let one of her school's students talk back to her. "Why do you care if you won the way that I told you to win by, rather than win by the way you wanted to do?" Kagura demanded, "You still won that match either way!"

"…If I ended up winning either way, then why do _you_ care which method I used?" Akuma asked. Gently shaking his head, the Satanist said, "I already brutalized one already defeated opponent even though I had no desire to do so, and I'm in no mood to do a repeat." Giving his principal a questioning look, Akuma asked, "Also, didn't you tell us that the girl that I just won against in round two is autistic?"

Once again, Kagura was caught off guard. "…The girl that I set down out of bounds," Akuma went, "The very girl you want as a student at Vulcan because of her big important daddy, is a special needs girl according to what you told us." Giving Kagura a wry look, Akuma asked, "Don't you think that Vulcan would be liable to be painted in a bad light if one of its students brutalized a special needs girl unnecessarily in a tournament?" The Satanist crossed his arms over his chest as he said with a hint of knowingness in his tone, "Believe it or not, I actually am looking out for the best interests of Vulcan."

Kagura had to admit that, in the heat of the potential glory that Akuma could have won for Vulcan in his match against Eunice Sirknight by straight up defeating her in the ring, that Eunice was autistic. She conceded to her Satanist student's point that if he did carry out her orders and won by straight up defeating Eunice even when he already had her beaten, it would make Vulcan look really bad. Loukar would likewise not be liable to be hearing any of Kagura's reasons for enrolling his foster daughter at Vulcan.

Scoffing with a hint of annoyance in her tone, Kagura said, "…Fine. I'll admit that you thought ahead and saved Vulcan High some potential trouble." Turning around to leave, Kagura added as she walked off to go back to the bleachers, "Just remember to not hold back against any non-Vulcan opponent that you face. That goes for all of you. And also don't forget that if any of you faces Yuki in a match, yield the match to him."

"I'll be sure to remind them of your orders if need be, mother," Yuki remarked as he waved his mother goodbye right before she turned a corner and was out of sight. Some of the other Vulcan students looked like they knew what was going on and accepted it, but Sakai didn't seem like she was in agreement. And Akuma, well, he just looked steamed.

(FLASHBACK OVER)

Aizawa and Sekijiro, as well as Nezu and both of Sakaki's parents, were a bit shocked to hear the story that their daughter had just finish telling. Nodding once, Aizawa said, "Okay, now I know it for sure. I owe both Toshinori and Endeavor an apology for grilling them whenever they show favoritism to Midoriya and Todoroki respectively."

"Speaking of blatant nepotism," Sekijiro remarked, "I bet that it threw Hojo threw a loop when Giratina ignored the order to let her son win their match."

Sakaki nodded once in the affirmative. "…Yeah, Principal Hojo was not at all happy that Akuma not only ignored her order to yield his match to Yuki, but had went above and beyond to take him out," Sakaki said.

(FLASHBACK)

"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, GIRATINA?!" Kagura bellowed at Akuma as he stood in front of her desk in her office at Vulcan High School; Sakaki, who had a feeling what was going to happen to her Satanic schoolmate when everyone got back to the school, decided to secretly follow him to listen in on what was going on. Sakaki flinched slightly when she heard what was clearly the sound of Kagura slamming her hands down on her desk, in a display to make her vast displeasure with Akuma's actions known to him.

The fat cat girl couldn't make out all of what was said over the next few minutes between Kagura and Akuma, although Sakaki did hear a line of argument from Akuma asking why the principal was so upset since Vulcan High won the tournament against Ketsubutsu as a whole either way. But that line of argument earned another slam of Kagura's palms on her desk, being loud enough again for Sakaki, who heard it, to flinch out of fright. Sakaki also heard Kagura say to Akuma that his actions during the latest tournament as a whole had done more to embarrass Vulcan than they did to bring it renown.

After a few tense minutes of waiting, Sakaki heard the door to Kagura's office open. Akuma, with a single-strap backpack slung over his right shoulder, walked out of the principal's office. He walked past the bench that Sakaki sat on and, upon realizing that someone was there, turned to face Sakaki. Seeing her, the Satanist student gave her a single nod of acknowledgement before he simply said, "Sakaki." Without another word, Akuma turned back around and walked away, leaving the fat cat girl worried about what exactly had gone down.

(FLASHBACK OVER)

With a sigh, Sakaki lamented, "…Yeah, Principal Hojo was very pissed at Akuma for not only not letting Yuki take the win, but beating him the way that he did." A tear for her friend welled up in the corner of her right eye as she said, "As such, Akuma ended up being expelled from Vulcan High."

The adults that were in Nezu's office were all taken aback in shock by what Sakaki had just revealed concerning the ultimate fate of the now former Vulcan High student. Sekijiro, with a look of remorseful guilt in his expression, crossed his arms over his chest as he lamented, "And here I was, thinking that me and other teachers here not giving Giratina the benefit of the doubt was the worst that he had to deal with." With a sigh, the pro hero Vlad King said, "I guess that Toshinori and Endeavor were both right. Giratina really _does_ have the heart of a hero, despite what his appearance and some of his actions may suggest."

"It's a sign of a real hero if they defy unfair, biased orders from a superior that has clearly allowed their power to go to their head," Aizawa remarked, "And Giratina had done just that by ignoring what Hojo told him to do and decided to instead be true to who he really was." Letting out a troubled sigh, the underground hero said, "And look where it got him."

The other adults looked similarly as upset as Aizawa did. Even Nezu, who is normally very hard to bother, looked greatly troubled by what all Sakaki had just told him and the other adults. The quirked animal principal turned slightly to his computer and did some quick looking up of info to see if what Sakaki had said was true. Sure enough, Nezu was able to confirm that Akuma really was expelled from Vulcan High.

Similar to the aforementioned Toshinori and Endeavor, Nezu also felt that Akuma had the heart of a true hero despite his appearance and the air that he gives off; the quirked animal principal felt that the Satanist should look into trying to get into another hero high school. However, with a mix of the air that he gave off as well as his record of expulsion from Vulcan High, Akuma had quite the uphill battle to face if he was looking to get into another hero high school.

…Well, it's a good thing that Nezu was already working on some…special plans…for both Aizawa's class and Sekijiro's class.

END, CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Author's notes;

This was something that I had planned for this arc since I was still writing out the matches in the U.A.-v-Vulcan tournament that involved Akuma. He's a far more complex character than what was shown back in this story's first arc, capable of more than what many would have assumed of him at first. Believe you me, I wasn't simply going to just drop a character had as much potential as Akuma after his time in the first arc; I likewise had plans to bring back Sakaki Yamamaya at a later point, partly for the benefit of a certain brainwasher who likes cats.

Anyway, the next chapter or two will be seeing a good bit of action, with said action being the reason _why_ this arc is called the 'Monster War arc'. Said action will also play a role in what I'm ultimately going to do with a certain subplot that had popped up in the latter parts of the previous arc. Said action is also related to the…special plans…that Nezu has for Aizawa's and Sekijiro's respective classes that were mentioned at the tail end of this chapter, with said plans having a lot of impact on chapters and arcs to come.


	18. Chapter 18

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter eighteen: Total War part one- The hordes of Hirajo

The morning started off well enough for the students of U.A. High School's class 1-A. The twenty students all sat at their desks or were milling about the classroom, as just two seconds after Aizawa started the first class of the day (literally just two seconds after), he was called out by an emergency call from Principal Nezu's office, with said call likewise going out to every other teacher at the school. This meant that the kids of 1-A had some free time.

"So I was thinking, girls," Mina began in a casual, conversational tone as she spoke to Tsuyu, Uraraka, Kyoka, Hagakure and Yaoyorozu, "After Aizawa-sensei gets the okay from Principal Nezu to hold that vote to let us determine whether or not to kick Mineta out of U.A., that the six of us ought to get together to celebrate not having that perverted bastard in class anymore." The pink-skinned girl clapped her hands together as she said, "I was thinking we can host a party in the common area of our dorm building and invite everyone to celebrate. We should also invite all of 1-B, the Big Three, and I was even thinking of getting both Hatsume and Shinso as well."

Nodding in agreement, Yaoyorozu said, "I'll be more than glad to pay for the catering for the celebratory party." Giving her fellow 1-A girls a thumbs up, the rich girl continued, "We'll all be eating like royalty, or my name isn't Momo Yaoyorozu."

"I, too, dream of a day where there is no Mineta do deal with at U.A.," Tsuyu remarked dryly, "But there's always a chance that Principal Nezu will not approve Mineta's expulsion kero."

Mineta, over where he sat, called over to the 1-A girls in a sad tone, "I can hear you girls."

"As you should, Grape Head!" Bakugo scolded, pointing an accusing finger at the infamous pervert, "Believe you me, if the principal does decide to bring Christmas to us early, we all will vote to yeet your sorry ass out of U.A! And we will be fucking _laughing_ the whole damn time!"

"Bakugo," Tenya began in a scolding tone, even doing his noted hand-chopping gesture, "As much as such drastic actions against our fellow classmate may be warranted in this situation, given what all he did while we were all on our field trip over in the United States, it does not set a very good standard to rub it in the face of said classmate." Stopping it with the hand-chopping gesture, Tenya used the respective hand to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose a bit as he added, "And regardless of what decision the school staff ends up making in regards to Mineta's punishment, we have to accept it."

The explosive teen crossed his arms over his chest as he scoffed in an annoyed tone, turning his head to look away from the new Ingenium. "You just have to be a buzzkill, don't you four-eyes?" Bakugo asked, the annoyance in his tone shining through some more.

"Every party needs a pooper that's why we invited you," Kaminari said in a sort of sing-song tone as he gestured to Tenya, "Party pooper!" Kaminari's little bit there got some of the other boys in class, such as Bakugo, Sero and Kirishima, to laugh along with the electric quirk boy. Mina also laughed a bit, as did Hagakure and, surprisingly enough, Shoji; in fact, Dark Shadow came out from Tokoyami _just_ to join in on laughing along with Kaminari, although Tokoyami himself did not laugh (not that he didn't find Kaminari's song unfunny, mind you).

Tenya growled a bit, more annoyed than embarrassed. As for Mineta, he went down in the dumps even more since it was clear that he was being taunted by his fellow classmates, not that he doesn't have said taunting coming for the stunt that he pulled while he and the rest of 1-A were over in the United States. After all, not only did the infamous pervert do what amounts to sexual harassment, but he also very nearly got seven of his classmates killed due to pissing off someone with a Sacred Heritage quirk.

How could Mineta do all of that and _not_ be considered for expulsion from U.A.?

As the students of 1-A were talking and laughing amongst themselves, the door to their classroom was suddenly thrown open, drawing the attention of everyone. When they all turned to see what was going on, the students all saw Aizawa and Hizashi walk into the room together. The class would have settled down and all gotten to their desks when Aizawa walked in, but since he came in with Hizashi as well, the 1-A kids all knew that something had to be up. In fact, it was Izuku who first noticed the looks of resigned worry on the faces of the two U.A. teachers.

Aizawa and Hizashi both stood in front of the class over in front of where Aizawa's desk was located, with the underground hero gesturing for all of his homeroom brats to settle down so that he could begin. Aizawa let out a sigh before he said, "Alright, brats, listen up. Hizashi and I have a few announcements that we need to make concerning what all will be going on today." Once everyone in the classroom were quiet, Aizawa began, "First off, classes here at U.A. are going to be canceled for the day. Sec-"

The underground hero found himself cut off suddenly when most of his students all cheered at the top of their lungs; only Izuku and other intelligent members of the class, such as Yaoyorozu and Tenya, did not cheer as they noticed that the teachers were both not exactly thrilled about something. Either way, it took Hizashi shouting with the use of his quirk to get everyone in class to settle back down.

Giving a nod of thanks to his co-worker and fellow pro hero, Aizawa then turned back to face his students and explained, "As…I was trying to say, there's a reason why classes were canceled for today, so don't go thinking that you all can goof off as you'd like today. You're still going to be needed, and to do some rather serious work, no less."

It was Yaoyorozu who raised her hand first, and after Aizawa called on her she asked, "What exactly are we needed for, Aizawa-sensei?"

Aizawa let out a resigned sigh, a sign that he was not looking forward to what he had to tell his students. "…Here's the thing, Yaoyorozu," Aizawa began as he faced his students while gesturing to Hizashi and then himself, "The two of us here just got back from something of a staff meeting with the rest of U.A.'s staff, as well as some…special guest visitors…"

(FLASHBACK)

Aizawa and Hizashi, along with a lot of the U.A. staff, were all seated around a large round table in a private meeting room, with Nezu sitting at a sort of leading spot, if that made any sense. The quirked animal principal was accompanied by two men and a woman that seemly had mutation quirks that allowed them to assume some manner of humanoid animal forms, with the first man being a humanoid rat, the second being a humanoid weasel, and the woman being a humanoid boar; Nemuri was surprised that the humanoid boar woman was notably slim, as humans that had pig-like features tended to be rather on the plump side of things.

"Sorry that I had to call as many of you all in for this meeting on such short notice," Nezu apologized as he gently sat some forms he had out to the side; these forms varied ranging from one that would adjust the size of classes via increasing/decreasing student count, one that would fast track the creation of a department to help special needs students, and a few forms that were needed to enroll some students into the school. There was also a form for expelling a student, but nothing was written on that form as of yet.

Gesturing to his boss and good friend, Toshinori remarked, "Well from what I heard through hearsay on my way to the meeting, there's something of an emergency going on."

"Can I assume that the emergency has something to do with the trio of guests that you have here, Nezu?" Sekijiro asked as he gestured to the three people that were standing behind the quirked animal principal.

Nodding twice in the affirmative, Nezu proceeded to explain, "Yes, the emergency very much has to do with our guests here. You see, they are…how should I put this…" With a bit of thought, Nezu turned to face Snipe and said, "You have a handheld quirk detection scanner on hand with you, don't you? Please use it on our three guests."

Snipe, with an air of mild confusion as well as curiosity, took out a small device roughly the general size and shape of the average smartphone, aimed it at the three guests, and proceeded to activate the device. Snipe had the device pointed at the three guests for a good solid minute before he lowered the device as he gave off a genuinely confused air. "…All three of them are quirkless," the marksmen hero said, drawing looks of surprise out of everyone in the room aside from Nezu and the three guests.

"How can all three of them be quirkless?" Ectoplasm asked the rest of the staff in the meeting as he gestured to the three guests, "I mean, look at them! They all very obviously have mutation quirks that give them humanoid animal appearances! How can all three of them be quirkless?"

"Because quirks are not a _monster_ thing," the humanoid weasel man said as he took a step forward. Gesturing to himself and his fellows, the humanoid weasel person continued, "And Hamato, Soma and I are all monsters, not humans." The humanoid weasel man's words only drew further confused looks out of the members of the U.A. staff.

Waving his right paw-hand in the air to get everyone's attention, Nezu said, "Chozei is right. He, as well as his companions here, are all monsters. You know, like the ghosts and goblins from the various fairy tales that parents read to their children."

Nodding in confirmation, the humanoid boar woman said, "You all know what a werewolf is, right? Well, Hamato, Chozei and I are all lycanthropic monsters, just like werewolves. Hamato is a wererat, Chozei is a wereweasel, and I am a wearboar."

"And lycan-type monster are far from the only ones out there," Hamato the wererat remarked, "There are demon-types such as Yasha and Succubi, undead-type such as Vampires, Zombies and Jiang-Shi, Sacred Animal-types such as Crow Tengu, and so-forth." Letting out a troubled sigh, the wererat added, "There are also warmonger-types, such as Trolls, Ogres and Orcs."

"Those warmonger-types are the reason why our monstrous guests are here, everybody," Nezu explained to his staff, "You see, Hamato, Chozei and Soma are all leading members of the monster world government, and as such it is their duty to run things to ensure the safety of the monster populace. Sadly, something has popped up on their radar that required them to seek out the help of others that are outside of the monster world."

The other U.A. staff members, despite being confused, still decided to roll with things. "And I can only assume that these…warmonger-type monsters…are the reason why these monster government people here came to seek out our aid?" Higari asked.

Chozei nodded once in the affirmative before he proceeded to explain things. "You see, humans," the wereweasel began, "There is this one fellow called Hirajo. He is a member of one of the warmonger-type races, and he's managed to gather a large army of other warmonger monsters. We received word that Hirajo plans to lead his massive warband in attacking one of the areas in town later today." Upon hearing that there was going to be a large attack of monsters in town sometime today, the U.A. teachers all became alarmed.

"We have reason to believe that a business office building called Shirayuki Offices, which is located in the business district, is the primary target," Soma the wereboar said, "As Hirajo and his warband seek the head of Hatsuharu Shirayuki, as well as the heads of his wife Tsurara and daughter Mizore. The warmongers claim that the ancestors of Hatsuharu drove the warmongers of the past off of land that was original belonging to the warmongers themselves."

"As such, they aim to not only kill the Shirayuki family, but also the whole of the Snow Fairy race, as well as any of their Mage allies that get in the way," Hamato remarked. With a gentle shake of his head, the wererat continued, "We also have reason to believe that any and all civilians that are caught up in the crossfire will get killed by the warmongers as well. It's part of why monster world government decided that the best thing that we can do is seek out the help of notable humans, such as you heroes."

"Huh, interesting," Aizawa remarked, "I never would have guessed that monster world history was so complicated of an affair." Gesturing to the trio of lycan-type monsters, the underground hero continued, "And the talk of civilians getting killed if caught up in the crossfire is something that heroes such as the lot of us here at the meeting can't stand for." Crossing his arms over his chest, Aizawa added, "I take it that part of the reason you sought out our help is because you all lack sufficient power to counter the oncoming threat?"

"Monster world government has virtually zero military presence in the area that Hirajo and his warband will be attacking," Chozei explained, "The most that the monster world can claim to have in that area are the students from Yokai Academy that all had to transfer over to Azu-Daioh High since the academy had to be evacuated. And those are just high school students."

Shrugging, Soma said, "Sure, all of the Yokai Academy students are monsters, but they are all still _civilian_ students." Gently shaking her head, Soma said, "We monster world government folks would rather not put civilians on the front lines of what is practically a straight-up war against the hordes of the warmonger Hirajo."

Nodding once in understanding, Hound Dog, as he sat in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest, remarked, "That's fair. Although I'm not quite sure why you all would come here to U.A. instead of seeking out the help of the Hero Public Safety Commission." Giving a shrug, Hound Dog continued, "I mean, they're the ones who are the true managers of all of the pro heroes, so if it was an army of heroes you wanted to help combat the warmonger monsters, then the good folks at the commission are who you should have-"

"About that, Hound Dog," Nezu said with a troubled sigh, cutting off the guidance counselor of U.A. As he gently shook his head, the quirked animal principal explained, "The president of the commission already spoke with the monster world government and had declined their request for aid, as the problem does not involve criminals or quirked villains." Turning to regard Aizawa and Sekijiro, Nezu said, "I believe you two know some of this from discussions that you both had with Loukar Raioh, the chief of the commission's president's advisory panel."

Aizawa nodded once in confirmation. "Yes," the underground hero began, "Loukar mentioned something along those lines when Sekijiro and I last spoke with him. He didn't sound all that fond of the commission's president turning down said request since it lacked any concerns of criminals or quirked villains." With a mildly growling expression of annoyance, Aizawa added, "But I think that this 'Hirajo' fellow may qualify as a criminal, as it sounds to me like he's about to commit a major war crime by waging war in an area populated by innocent civilians." Leaning back in his seat, Aizawa continued, "But that still doesn't explain why folks from the monster world government would come here to U.A. and tell us all about-"

"Oh, you have GOT to be kidding me!" Ken Ishiyama practically exclaimed, slamming his large, gray hands on the surface of the meeting table where he sat, a look of alarmed realization on his square face, "There is NO WAY that we can agree to-"

"Cementoss, calm down," Nezu said, cutting the modern lit teacher off. With a troubled sigh, Nezu said, "I have already met with the officials from the monster world government, and have already agreed to have U.A. led them what aid that we can provide."

Hound Dog, with a confused look on his face, asked in a likewise tone, "We're…going to have the whole staff of U.A. help the monsters fight back the hordes of that Hirajo fellow?"

"Not just the staff," Nezu said with a gentle shake of his head. Sighing in a resigned manner, the quirked animal principal explained, "Due to the severe lack of available heroes, as well as what manner of dire consequences will occur if Hirajo and his hordes are not stopped, I failed to find any other choice than to pledge not just the support of the U.A. staff, but that of _all_ of the U.A. hero course students as well."

This time, it was Toshinori who exclaimed in objection, even shooting up into his hero form temporarily. "Are you serious, Nezu?!" the former symbol of peace exclaimed, "We have to send our students out to fight a horde of warmongering monsters?!"

"The stubbornness of the commission to lend aid in any matters that don't involve stopping criminals or quirked villains left us with no other choice," Nezu explained, "And U.A. isn't the only hero high school that's sending students to fight." Toshinori deflated back down into his true form as he flumped back down into his chair, letting out a troubled, annoyed and notably worried sigh.

Gesturing to the U.A. staff, Chozei said, "It's not just you heroes that we from the monster world government sought aid from. We also sent word to that mages' guild over in Magnolia Town, and we petitioned the government of Konohagakure for aid as well. We have yet to receive word from either of them, and if our intelligence is correct than the attack of Hirajo's horde is going to be commencing in less than one hour."

"It's bad enough that we're going to have to lead the hero course students of U.A. into war against hordes of monsters," Nemuri exclaimed, wide-eyed with shocked-surprise as she stood up while slamming the surface of the table she sat at with her hands, "But we were given _less than an hour's notice_ before we had to do so?! Are you fucking kidding me?!"

Both Aizawa and Sekijiro, whose sentiments were shared by Hound Dog, scoffed in bitter tones. "It's just like what Aizawa's friend Raioh said," the pro hero Vlad King remarked, "This is all because the commission president doesn't view problems not involving criminals or quirked villains as issues that pro heroes should be called up to help resolve." Aizawa and Hound Dog both nodded in agreement with the homeroom teacher of class 1-B.

Looking over to Nezu, Toshinori asked, "How many of U.A.'s hero course students are going to be needed for this, Nezu? If we absolutely have to send some of them, at least send as many of the oldest ones from the third year classes as can be spared." Gently shaking his head, the former number one pro hero said, "The younger ones from the first year classes should be spared from having to take part, if at all possible.'

"Sadly, it is very much impossible," the quirked animal principal of U.A. explained in a mildly resigned tone, "We have to lead pretty much _every_ hero course student, regardless of year, in the efforts to help the monster world government." Looking through a vanilla folder that had some files, Nezu continued, "It would also help if notable students here at U.A. that aren't in the hero course, such as Hatsumi and Shinso, were also sent out."

"I was afraid that would be the case," Higari said, crossing his arms over his chest. Letting out a resigned sigh, the pro hero Power Loader continued, "Well, at least Mei has built a lot of support gear that should be sufficient to help fight the warmongers."

Gently shaking his head, Aizawa said, "Yeah, I'm just going to have Shinso focus exclusively on getting civilians out of harm's way while others focus on the fighting, because there is no way in hell that am I going to have him fight a bunch of monsters in a practical war." The underground hero's statement, which sounded more like a demand than anything else, was met with a nod of agreement from Nezu.

"Yes, it's best if those who aren't actually heroes or heroes-in-training focus more on auxiliary roles such as leading civilians out of harm's way and avoid the actual fighting," Nezu said, "I wouldn't even have students like Hatsumi or Shinso take part at all if it wasn't for the fact that there is that much of a need for as many people as possible." Looking around at all of the U.A. staff members at the meeting, Nezu said, "Well, it's best that you explain the situation to as many of the hero course students as possible."

The rest of the staff all agreed, albeit reluctantly, with their boss as they all stood up from the meeting table, knowing full well that they were about to lead the hero course students on what is by far the most dangerous thing that any of them has had to deal with to date. Before they all left, the teachers were all provided with flash drives containing info that they had to share with the students before they led them off to war.

"There's…one more thing to consider," Chozei said, a look of mild concern on his face, "The warmongers in Hirajo's horde will not hesitate to kill. After all, as warmongers it is in their very blood." With a single nod, the wereweasel said, "That being said, if you or any of the other heroes that you manage to round up to help out find it necessary to do so, don't hesitate to kill any and all warmongers that you all come across."

The staff members of U.A. all went wide-eyed with surprise, given that they were more or less being given orders to kill. Even so, they were orders that they could understand, even though all of them wished that their students weren't among those receiving said orders. Regardless, the teachers and pro heroes of U.A. knew that there really wasn't much of a choice in the matter, as this was war that they were talking about.

A war that was about to see U.A. students as soldiers.

(FLASHBACK OVER)

"…And that pretty much sums everything up," Aizawa said as he finished showing the students in his homeroom class the info on the flash drive he was provided with, which had info on the various warmonger monsters that they had to keep their eyes out for. Throughout all of what the underground hero said, all of what he was showing them from the flash drive, not one student in class 1-A said even a single word.

There were worried looks all around the class, worried because they not only found out that monsters from fairy tales were actually real, but that they were about to go out and fight a bunch of said monsters. Even the 1-A students that craved combat were caught off guard and were worried about what was to occur. The first student that dared to break the cloak of silence that had fallen over all of 1-A was Tokoyami.

When Aizawa called on him, Tokoyami crossed his arms over his chest before he asked, "So we're about to go fight as many of these 'warmonger-type monsters' as they are called as we can all manage, otherwise said monsters will destroy everything and kill as many innocent civilians as they can get their hands on?" His gaze narrowing a bit, the bird-headed shadow wielder added, "And we've also been given permission to _kill_ if necessary?"

"Are heroes even _allowed_ to kill kero?" Tsuyu asked as she raised a hand, the barest hint of concern seeping through her otherwise unreadable tone.

Pointing over all of the 1-A students, Hizashi said, "Aizawa and I would rather that none of you were to actually kill anyone, and if you can avoid doing so then do so." Sighing once, the pro hero Present Mic continued, "But yes. If any of you are in a situation during the upcoming conflict were you're dealing with some warmonger monsters, don't see any other choice when dealing with said monsters, then you are allowed to kill them."

Suddenly, most of the 1-A students in the class all turned to look at Bakugo. Seeing that all of the eyes were on him, the explosive teen said, "What the fuck is your guys' problem?"

Aizawa clapped his hands together a few times to get all of his homeroom brats to turn to face him and Hizashi. "Everyone, go get changed into your hero costumes now and as quickly as possible, we're shipping out in t-minus fifteen minutes," the underground hero commanded. A single resigned sigh escaped from Aizawa before he said, "As much as I would never wish this upon any of you, you brats are about to get your first taste of war."

* * *

To the surprise of the hero course students, they were all loaded into planes that flew over the city, with the intent to deploy them from the air and into the fighting zones straight away. Some of the students in 1-A were in one of the planes that was flying over the city; specifically, that plane was carrying Bakugo, Izuku, Todoroki, Kirishima, Yaoyorozu, Sero, Mina, Kaminari, Tsuyu and Uraraka. Looking out the windows, the 1-A students could see that there was already some fighting going on, and some of them were a bit rattled to see the warmonger-type monsters that they had to keep an eye out for in real life.

"Okay, Aizawa's kids," Higari said, getting the 1-A students in the plane to turn to see the pro hero Power Loader, already in his hero outfit. "We're currently flying over the area where one of the local non-hero high schools, a place called Azu-Daioh High, is located," Power Loader told the 1-A students, "A lot of warmonger-type monsters were spotted making their way in the direction of that school, so you all will be air-dropped over Azu-Daioh High to fight the warmongers."

"I take it that planes carrying the rest of our class," Yaoyorozu began as she raised a hand, "As well as planes carrying students from other hero course classes, are flying over various other areas in the city, and everyone will be air-dropped over there?"

Power Loader nodded in the affirmative to the rich girl's question. Gesturing to the students, the tech-based hero continued, "The ultimate goal is to find that Hirajo fellow, as he the ringleader here, also the monster world government put a bounty on his sorry ass. The teachers and any other pro heroes that get in on this will be focusing on trying to track down Hirajo, so you kids just focus on fighting off the warmongers that will be trying to attack Azu-Daioh High. Do I make myself clear?"

The 1-A students all nodded in the affirmative before Power Loader said, "Good." With a smirk, Power Loader slammed a big red button on the wall inside of that room on the plane that he and everyone else was in. When that happened, the floor under the students gave way, air-drooping all of them over Azu-Daioh High below them. "Try not to die, kids," Power Loader said right as the students of 1-A began to fall out of the plane.

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Author's notes;

Just so we are clear, I am endeavoring to make a point on how the heroes would rather avoid killing, if at all possible; they are _heroes_, after all, and they have to set an example. However, there are some times where things pop up for them that throw things so far out of left field that there's not much of a choice in the matter. One of the purposes of this mini-arc is to show what exactly the heroes are capable of when they aren't being given the choice that they prefer to make. Things are going be getting a bit…ugly…over the next few chapters, but it's to help me make my point on why I agree with the heroes' idea of refraining from killing if it can be helped.

(As a side note, I know that in the most recent chapters (this chapter went up 1-27-2020), there's a really big battle between the heroes and the villains about to go down; I wrote this chapter sometime ago, back around the point where Shigaraki was given a four-month period of needing to train or whatever before he was ready to do his dank shenanigans. That 'four month' period will be coming up later on down the line in some form; think of the first bulk of this story as a sort of filler that goes on since the time Shiggy got that four month wait time and the time where he finishes the four months. I also have a plan for a lot of guys later on down the line as well; this story may, in fact, end up going down the path of becoming an AU all of its own in that case.)

…Anyway, if you're interested in seeing some of the 1-A kids in action, then stick around to see them fight alongside/in defense of characters from other manga and anime. The real fighting is going to be kicking off, and some of it can be seen from other angles in some of my other works, if any of you all are interested in checking things out. But if it's just the BNHA angle that you want to look at things at, then I won't hold it against you.

In fact, you all will be in for a treat next time, as I can guarantee you that the very first scene of the next chapter will see Izuku, Bakugo, Todoroki and Kirishima jumping down in front of some monsters that are charging at Azu-Daioh High to intercept and fight them. I will also show a few scenes that take place in other parts of the city, where a few pro heroes that aren't part of the initial defense force deployed to fight the warmonger monsters end up getting dragged in to help fight off the warmongers anyway.

In fact, one of said pro heroes that I will be featuring in the next chapter is actually a personal favorite of mine. I won't say straight up who she is, but I will hint at her; one, it's a female pro hero (obviously since I'm using female pronouns), and two, she appeared in this story already. Good luck trying to guess; the first person to correctly guess (assuming they make only ONE guess) who the hero in question is will get a shout out in the next chapter.


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter nineteen: Total War part two- The one they fear

Izuku, along with Bakugo, Todoroki and Kirishima, all ended up landing on the roof of the main building for Azu-Daioh High, right when a large group of the warmonger monsters started swarming outside of the wall surrounding the regular high school. The green-eyed boy looked out and over to the large group of big, hulking, muscular brutes such as trolls, ogres and orcs. Izuku still couldn't believe that such creatures even existed, even though he and his classmates have seen Nomu before.

Cracking his neck a bit, Bakugo said to the others that were with him, "Well, extras, I say we get down there and give those monster assholes a warm welcome, if you know what I mean!"

Pounding a fist into his hand, Kirishima said, "Oh ho, just try and stop me from kicking some of their asses, Baku-bro!" As much as he was worried, Izuku could not help but agree with Bakugo and Kirishima; Todoroki likewise nodded to show that he was in agreement with his more excited classmates, even though he himself kept a cool head. Seeing the warmongers burst in through the gate, the heroes-in-training knew that it was time to head on in. The four of them, standing side by side, ended up jumping down from the roof of the school building to make a dynamic entrance.

"You fucking shitheads are SO going to get it now!" Bakugo declared while pointing at the warmongers. Turning to face the other three boys, the explosive teen continued, "Alright, guys. I'll take the lead, so you all back me up!"

"Kacchan, remember that we not only have a plan, but that we need to prioritize protecting the civilians," Izuku pointed out.

Scoffing a little bit, Bakugo replied, "You never can seem to completely grow a whole spine, can you, Deku?"

"I think that Midoriya's got a point, Bakugo," Todoroki remarked, "These are not regular, run of the mill villains that we're dealing with here. They're straight up monsters."

"Well what are we waiting for?" Kirishima said as he banged his fists together, "Let's kick some monster ass already! We can't afford to just stand around while these monsters pose a threat to innocent civilians! That would be hella unmanly!"

The warmonger monsters that flooded into Azu-Daioh High grounds all stopped short a bit when they saw the four hero course students show up. Pointing at the boys, one of the warmongers shouted at all four of them, "If you boys are going to get in our way, then we'll kill you just like with everyone else here!"

Bakugo snarled in annoyance as he glared at the warmongers. "Like fuck we'll be the ones to die!" the explosive teen yelled back as he threw his hands up so that they were aimed at the warmonger monsters, sending a bunch of explosions at them and taking them by surprise. "Go, you guys!" Bakugo yelled, prompting his classmates to charge in to help him fight all of the warmonger monsters.

Todoroki started by conjuring ice and throwing it at the warmongers, surprising them and making them all look at him in suspicion. However, they all looked alarmed when the half-and-half boy immediately followed his ice attack up with a fire attack. An orc tried running up and punching Kirishima, but the hardening quirk boy had his hardening quick active just in time, so the orc had to pull his fist back, which had suffered multiple cuts as Kirishima was also sharp in some places.

With an amused smirk, Kirishima said, "You and all of your pals here are pretty damn unmanly for attacking a bunch of innocent people." Jerking a thumb at himself, Kirishima continued, "That's why all of my friends and I from U.A. High School were sent here to beat you all into submission!"

While Kirishima dealt with that orc, a few warmongers tried charging at Izuku, but he sent all of them flying with multiple Delaware Smash Air Forces, thankful that he remembered to bring his special gloves that Hatsume made for him. While all of that was going on, Bakugo laughed as if he were having the time of his life right now, all the while he was blasting all of the warmongers that came up to him with explosions. Despite the numerical disadvantage, the four boys from U.A. seemed like they were having no trouble holding their own against the large number of all of those warmonger monsters.

* * *

The day started off well enough for Ryuko Tatsuma, also known as the Dragoon Hero Ryukyu. After she had gotten herself cleaned and dressed, leaving her home in a casual civilian outfit (she was not expecting to do any hero work until much later in the day), Rykuo made her way over to a certain someplace located in the city. The Dragoon Hero had been by this place many times, and the people there were always glad to see her come.

"Ryukyu, welcome!" a mid-twenties woman greeted the number ten pro hero as Ryuko walked into the Autistic Children Development Care building, a sort of school slash daycare in the city for children that have autism. This woman wore a long-sleeved light gray baggy sweater under a light blue apron, a pair of baggy jeans held up with a belt, white socks and black slip-on shoes. The woman was fair-skinned, had a relatively cute and friendly face, and she had long light brown hair in a straight hime-style cut.

Ryuko flashed a smile to the young adult woman, a sign that she was feeling the friendly welcome. "I just figured that it was about time for me to stop by here with the twice-per-month donation that I was going to make," the draconic hero remarked.

The young adult woman, although still smiling in a friendly and thankful manner, looked a bit confused. "Isn't it a few days early?" the woman asked.

Ryuko chuckled a bit before explaining, "I got a massive bonus when I stopped a group of villains that were going to attack the market district here in town." More amusement entered the Dragoon Hero's expression when she said, "I even showed up _Endeavor_ in the process."

"Yes, that was rather impressive," the woman replied. Gently shaking her head, the woman continued, "Even though he is the current number one pro hero, and he has made a bit of a turn for being a better role model, the other teachers here and I still don't think that Endeavor is all that good of an influence that we would want on the children here."

Smiling warmly, the woman added, "Unlike with you, Ryuko. A lot of the children here love you, and we owe so much to you, especially considering that all of the donations you've made here make up ninty percent of what we get donated to us by pro heroes, and what we get from pros make up forty percent of our total funding overall." The woman gently shook her head before saying, "We would be in a rather serious bind if the pro heroes who donate to us, especially you, were to stop, since what we get from the government isn't quite enough to cover everything that all of the children here need in order to truly help them."

Ryuko let out a resigned sigh as she turned her head to look up at the ceiling in the main reception room that she stood in with the woman. "…I told you about Anahthyne, didn't I?" Ryuko asked, never moving her gaze from the ceiling in the main reception room.

The woman's expression softened a bit, as well as take on a hint of somberness. "…Your kid sister, right?" The woman asked, drawing a somber nod from the number ten pro hero, "Yeah, I remember the story. Back when you were twenty-four, your kid sister Anahthyne was eight when she was drowned by a housemaid your family hired, because said housemaid couldn't deal with handling an autistic girl like her." Placing a hand on Ryuko's left shoulder, getting the Dragoon Hero to look down from the ceiling to her, the woman continued, "We miss her here too, you know."

A single tear fell down along the right side of Ryuko's face. "…I wish that Anahthyne was still alive," Ryuko said, "Her tenth birthday would have been later this week. I would have gone all out in spoiling her on her special day, you know."

"I bet that she would have loved all the attention from her pro hero older sister," the woman agreed, "And we would have thrown Anahthyne something of a party here, too. In fact, one of the boys here who had something of a crush on Anahthyne when she was still alive would have tried to look into getting her a really nice toy, I bet."

Ryuko perked up a bit at what the woman mentioned. "Ah yes," the Dragoon Hero remarked, "I remembered that some boy that you guys see here regularly, I think his name is Samidare, had the cutest little crush on Anahthyne."

"Yes, you got his name right," the woman confirmed as she nodded once in agreement, "And he still comes in from time to time." The woman would have continued, but she was cut off when Rumi Usagiyama and Yu Takeyama, who were also respectively known as the pro heroes Mirko and Mt. Lady, came running right on in. Seeing Ryuko, the two female pro heroes proceeded to practically bum-rush their draconic fellow hero.

"Ryuko, there you are!" Rumi said, clearly in something of a panic, same as Yu.

The looks on the faces of her fellow female pro heroes did not escape the attention of the Dragoon Hero. "…Girls, what's going on?" Ryuko asked, "Also, do try to keep things down as quiet as possible. A lot of the children here are not fond of loud noises at all, and they scare really easy."

Rumi and Yu tried to calm themselves down as much as possible. "…Look, here's the TLDR," Yu began, "Monsters like ghosts and goblins from fairy tales are real, a bunch of monsters such as trolls, ogres and orcs have just started attacking various areas here in the city, and the only force that's been organized to counter the monsters are hero course students from various hero high schools like U.A."

"None of the pro heroes have been organized to counter the monster attack because the Commission doesn't want to get involved as it does not involve criminals or quirked villains," Rumi further clarified, "So the few pro heroes that are involved in trying to stop the monsters are either teachers at the various hero high schools, or a few random pros that saw what was going on and decided to join in voluntarily."

Gesturing to Ryuko, Yu said, "Rumi and I need you to join us in helping to fight off the monsters, and one of the people working at your hero agency told us you were coming here. That's the end of that story."

Both Ryuko and the woman working at the building were wide-eyed with confused surprise and shock. Sighing in a resigned tone, Ryuko said, "…I'll ask for more details later. For now, I think that I ought to go with you girls." The Dragoon Hero turned to the woman, told her that she would come back later, and then left with Yu and Rumi. Right after the three female pro heroes left, the building, Yu grew giant before Rumi hopped up and landed on the giant heroine's right shoulder, standing there and essentially allowing Yu to act as her ride. Right when Rumi landed on Yu's shoulder, Ryuko transformed into a dragon and took up off into the air, flying at about shoulder level with Yu.

"…I also received word from one of the heroes who teaches over at U.A. that the government of the monster world that is trying to deal with the attacking monsters has given any and all heroes that are taking part in trying to end the fighting permission to kill the attacking monsters if need be," Rumi explained to her fellow pro heroes.

Hearing that they essentially had the go ahead to end the lives of the monsters that they were going to fight shocked both Yu and Ryuko. As pro heroes, they had to set an example of doing some good, and killing, regardless who or what the target was, is not quite the way to go about being said example. Ryuko felt especially reluctant to take any lives regardless as she was afraid that, should the children who are cared for over at the special school she had just left hear what she might end up doing, they might get scared of her if they hear that she's killed. The Dragoon Hero does not want having scared the kids on her conscious.

* * *

Over at Azu-Daioh High, Yaoyorozu had just finished using her quirk to create a cannon, similar to the ones used in the American Civil War. She also created a number of cannonballs to go with it. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure that some of those warmonger bastards we were warned about will be coming down this hallway," Mina said as she and Sero stood behind their rich classmate, "All we have to do now is wait for the monsters to-"

The pink-skinned girl was cut off when she, Yaoyorozu and Sero heard some screaming coming down the end of the hallway that they were facing. A total of five Azu-Daioh High students, three boys and two girls, turned the corner and started running down the hallway towards the U.A. students. The five Azu-Daioh High students were all clearly so frightened that they all had no idea that they were running towards heroes-in-training.

What alerted Yaoyorozu, Mina and Sero was when one of the large warmonger monsters that they had to keep an eye out for turned the corner and proceeded to give chase to the five students that were running towards them. Wasting no time, Yaoyorozu used her created cannon to fire a cannonball right at the warmonger. The sound of the cannon going off made the five Azu-Daioh high students jump to the side.

The warmonger, who took the cannonball hit right to his abdomen, let out a pained cry. The five Azu-Daioh High students all turned their attention to where Yaoyorozu stood. "Hey, you five!" the rich girl shouted at the five civilians, gesturing for them to get behind her, "If the lot of you are all civilians, then get behind me and continue running in that direction! The way is clear, and my friends and I will cover your escape!" The five civilian teens all nodded in agreement as they all took advantage of Yaoyorozu's offer, rushing past her to continue running away as Mina and Sero rushed forward past Yaoyorozu to go take on the warmonger.

Sero ran on Yaoyorozu's right while Mina ran on the left, but that changed when Sero used his quirk to shoot some tape out, grab ahold of a fixture, and use the momentum to jump up and swing around and over Mina, who was skating along by secreting acid from her feet, which got out thanks to her special shoes. When she got close enough, Mina skated around the warmonger to his right, skating behind him in an arc pattern as she shot blobs of her acid at the warmonger from her fingertips with her hands in gun-like gestures, shooting the blobs of acid like bullets.

After Mina came sliding out from behind the warmonger on his left, Sero landed behind the monster with a length of his tape landed over then around onto his neck, strangling the monster a bit as if the length of his tape was a garrote. The monster struggled a bit as he fell back while Mina shot more acid and Yaoyorozu fired more cannonballs at him. "Hey Sero, Mina," the rich girl said, getting her classmates' attention. When they both turned to see Yaoyorozu, Sero and Mina both noticed that Yaoyorozu was panting in exhaustion, sweating a bit, and even a bit skinnier than they remembers.

"Can we hurry this up here?" Yaoyorozu asked, looking like she was getting a bit tired, "I'm starting to run low here."

"Damn, Momo, you ought to stop producing so much and find someplace safe to recuperate after we take this big guy down," Mina girl remarked in a concerned tone.

Yaoyorozu, who had produced a bit more than she should have in all honesty, nodded in agreement. Jerking a thumb behind her in the direction the five civilian students all fled in, Yaoyorozu said to Sero, "Hey Sero, can you make sure those civilians make it out okay?"

Giving the rich girl a somewhat playful salute, Sero replied, "Aye, aye, captain!" As he ran past her, Sero asked Yaoyorozu, "You want I should pick something up for you after I get those civilians to safety?"

"Some take-out from a nearby burger place would be really useful, given how much I've burned through making this cannon and the cannon balls for it," Yaoyorozu called back to Sero as Mina aimed her right fist at the open mouth of the warmonger monster and proceeded to pump a rather large volume of her acid down the warmonger's throat, making him go bug-eyed in alarm and pain as he flailed about futilely on the floor.

Letting the beaten warmonger monster drop to the floor of the hallway, Mina turned to look at her very wealthy friend. Crossing her arms over her chest, Mina remarked to Yaoyorozu, "You know, I'm kind of worried about how everyone else is doing. When I got to class this morning, I was not expecting Aizawa-sensei to tell us that we and a lot of the other hero students at U.A. were being deployed to this area because of an attack launched by an army's worth of large, muscular monsters like orcs, trolls and the like." Shaking her head in a manner of disbelief, the pink-skinned girl continued, "If you were to tell me sometime before today that evil monsters from the fairy tales I read when I was in preschool were actually real, I probably would have laughed in your face."

Giving Mina a somewhat dry look, Yaoyorozu replied, "…You do realize that we're both teens with superpowers, don't you?"

"Well that is something I'm used to!" Mina exclaimed as she flailed her arms about in the air, "Teens running around U.A. with their varying Quirks! These big hulking monsters that we've all been fighting since we've been deployed to this area!? NOT something I'm used to!" The rich girl could only roll her eyes in mild exasperation at her pink-skinned friend's mild freak-out.

* * *

Over in another part of the city where a lot of the warmonger monsters were attacking, one of said monsters was trying to keep the very giant foot of a very giant lady from stomping down on him. Struggled as he did, the warmonger eventually could not push back any longer, thus he ended up being crushed under the stomping force of the pro hero Mt. Lady. Even though she and her fellow female pro heroes had the okay to use lethal force against the warmonger monsters, Yu still felt a very slight shiver of revulsion go down her spine as she felt and heard the sickening, crunching splat of the monster under her right foot.

Rumi hopped up and, with her right foot leading the way, flew at another warmonger monster, striking him in the side of his neck with such pinpoint precision and force that she snapped his neck, dropping him like a sack of potatoes to the asphalt of the road that was in that area the three female pro heroes came to when it was Mt. Lady, with her height advantage, spotted the first group of warmongers that she, Rumi and Ryuko came across.

The warmongers were randomly attacking random civilians that were trying to run away. One such warmonger came close enough to a relatively slender mid-twenties woman and was about to strike her in the back with a very large fist, but before the monster could even swing his big meaty fist, he cried out in pain as large claws raked into his back, cutting bone and rending flesh.

He then felt large fangs bite into his neck, jerking his head around until the neck snapped, ending the warmonger forever. Ryuko, in her dragon form, spat the monster's neck out of her mouth before she turned to look over to where her fellow female heroes were fighting, warmonger blood coating her lower jaw (mostly on the right side) and front draconic hands and claws. Ryuko also saw two of the warmonger monsters try to square off against Ruki while Yu tried to crush another monster under foot.

The Dragoon Hero rushed at one of the monsters squaring off against Rumi, taking him from behind and rending his back much the same with the warmonger she had previously killed. As the monster Ryuko attacked cried out in pain, his fellow who as attacking Rumi with him turned to see what had attacked his ally. Upon seeing Ryuko, the warmonger monster went wide-eyed in alarm and absolute fear.

"DRAGON!" the warmonger cried out in alarm. Turning to flee, the warmonger tried to run as he screamed, "DRAGON! EVERYONE FALL BACK AND RETREAT TO THE OTHER AREAS OF THE CITY! THERE'S A DRAGON HERE IN THE-" The warmonger failed to get one more word out as he was killed with a neck-snapping kick to the back of his neck, courtesy of the Rabbit Hero.

After the warmonger she slew dropped to the asphalt, Rumi, with a mildly curious look, turned to face Ryuko. "…Was that one actually _afraid_ of you, Ryuko?" Rumi asked, "Because he was acting like he's seen something like you before."

"…Maybe I'm not the only person who can turn into a dragon out there," Ryuko replied as she spun around in place, slamming a warmonger in the chest with her powerful tail and sending him flying into the side of a brick building, causing the back of his head to smash a bit, resulting in his instant death.

Over where Yu was trying to stomp on a few more warmongers, the monsters all looked over to where Rumi and Ryuko were standing. Spotting the latter in her dragon from, the warmongers all proceeded to cry out in alarm as they turned tail and tried to run away. Although she was glad that the monsters were turning tail and running away, the pro hero Mt. Lady knew that she and her fellow pros could not let these dangerous monsters flee.

The gigantic pro hero proceeded to chase after the monsters, each of her steps a mighty stomp that shook the ground a bit. Rumi and Ryuko hopped and flew past Yu as they proceeded to cut off the escape of the monsters. Rumi used powerful kicks aimed at necks while Ryuko, with her claws and maw, ripped and rended the necks and flesh of the warmonger monsters. Yu stomped a few of the warmongers herself, and as such the monsters were wiped out before long.

Looking around at her surroundings with a look of grim disgust on her face, Yu remarked, "Yeech. At least all of the monsters in this area have been dealt with, so any civilians still hiding in this area or are trying to flee will be safe."

"What still has me confused is the fact that the monsters tried to turn tail and run the instant they spotted Ryuko here," Rumi remarked as she jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the transformed Dragoon Hero.

With a shrug, Yu said, "Hey, if Ryuko using her dragon form gives us an intimidation advantage over the monsters, then hey, more power to her. We need all the advantage that we can get." While the three female pro heroes stood in that area of the city, a police car came driving up to them. The police car stopped, and coming out of the driver side door after the police car parked was Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi.

Holding up a hand in greeting, Naomasa said to the female hero trio, "Greetings, heroes! I'm glad to see that a few more of the pro heroes took the initiative to help save the city from this monster attack, even though the Commission didn't deploy any of them due to lack of criminals or quirked villains to deal with!"

"Oh, you're that police detective who's friends with All Might," Yu greeted as she, Rumi and Ryuko approached Naomasa, with Yu and Ryuko changing back to normal.

Nodding in the affirmative, the detective explained, "Yeah, Toshi's the one who told me pretty much everything that I have on the current situation." Shaking his head in disbelief, Naomasa continued, "I still can't believe all of this is happening, monsters being real and attacking a human city. At least the heroes are helping to fight back against the attacking monsters." Giving the female heroes a concerned look, the detective said as he pointed to behind the female heroes, "I was actually on my way over in the direction of the bank in that area."

"Why? Are the monsters planning to attack and rob the bank?" Rumi asked.

Nodding in the affirmative, the detective replied, "That's what a lot of the boys in blue and I think, hence why as many squad cars are on their way to that area to try and stop the monsters that are attacking." Crossing his arms over his chest, Naomasa continued, "There are also a few other places in that direction that we're worried the monsters will try to attack, such as the Shady Acres retirement home, that one special school for autistic kids that's located across the street from the bank, that one fancy restaurant that Ryoga Yaoyorozu has been known to dine at with his family, and that one-"

Naomasa was cut off suddenly when Ryuko, instantly transforming back into her dragon form, turned around and took off up into the air before flying right in the direction that the detective was talking about, a look of enraged determination on the Dragoon Hero's draconic face as she flew off with all due speed. Looking in the direction that Ryuko flew off in, Naomasa had a bit of a bemused look on his face. "…Well, she seems to have the right idea," Naomasa remarked, "Doesn't even wait for me to ask her and the other two of you for help."

"Yeah, we better give chase so we can back Ryuko up," Rumi said as she and Yu, the latter transforming back into her giant form, proceeded to go after Ryuko to back her up. Likewise, Naomasa got back into his police cruiser and proceeded to drive after the female pro heroes, as some of his fellow police officers were also going to be in the area of the bank that they all were worried would be attacked by the warmonger monsters.

He was glad that he and his fellow boys in blue would have assistance from some pro heroes in stopping the attack on the bank and that fancy high-end restaurant; the police chief said that the bank and the high-end restaurant were the two main places in that area that needed protection from the attacking monsters, so all police effort should be focused on them. Naomasa also knew that, as per the chief's orders, he had to try to direct the attention of the on-site pro heroes to also focus on prioritizing the bank and the high-end restaurant. The good detective found it suspicious that he and the others were under orders that were clearly made with the intent to blatantly cater to the whims of the wealthy elite; the chief, when he gave said orders, looked like he wasn't all that happy with them, but had to make them either way. All in all, any heroes that Naomasa came across still had to be directed to help carry out the protection of the bank and the restaurant.

…Little did Naomasa know that the Dragoon Hero was going to prioritize protecting something else in that area entirely.

* * *

Over in the business district of the city, Aizawa and Sekijiro were standing outside the building for Shirayuki Offices when, to their alarm, a gigantic creature that looks like it came straight out of Lovecraftian horror suddenly was summoned in that area. It had multiple lengths of neck that ended only in 'Alien'-style toothy mouths, spiked ribs that jutted out and curved around part of its body, multiple tentacles coming out from the top, along with at least two bat-like wings and many arms that ended in what barely qualified as hands, huge portions of its body looked like giant, pulsating hearts, a large circular portion that was approximately in the middle of its body, and various other parts that added to the horror factor that it had going.

"And just how in the hell is anyone expected to take down that thing?" Sekijiro exclaimed as he pointed a finger at the gigantic horror, "We're going to need someone like Mt. Lady to tango with that beast!"

"Calm down, Sekijiro," Aizawa said to his fellow U.A. teacher in something of a scolding tone, "All we have to do is try to keep it occupied until backup gets here to-" The underground hero was cut off when both he and Sekijiro saw, to their surprise, a large red dragon appear practically out of nowhere right behind the horror, then promptly spewing a large volume of its fiery dragon breath at the horror's back, scorching the abomination alive as it cried out in pain.

A few seconds after it was struck by the dragon's fire, the horror fell over onto the ground, creating a mini earthquake of sorts as its form slammed into the ground. At that point, the dragon swooped down onto the horror and began raking it mercilessly with its claws. The melee barely lasted a few seconds, and it was clear when the dragon was finished that the horror had been slain. As the dragon took up and flew off in the direction of Shirayuki offices, the two men that confronted the horror saw its form fade, as if into the ether.

"…Aizawa," Sekijiro said as he turned to face the homeroom teacher of class 1-A, "I don't suppose you can tell me what the fuck the two of us had just witnessed was?" As he and Sekijiro continued to look at the area where the horror had laid when it was being torn apart by the large red dragon, Aizawa could only shake his head gently in a gesture of disbelief.

"…Sekijiro," Aizawa began, "Even though both you and I have seen many things since our respective careers as pro heroes began, there are still things that can leave us dumbfounded." Gesturing to where the horror had laid before it faded into the ether, Aizawa continued, "That was just one of many things that we as humans just cannot come up with an explanation for." Sekijiro, who was just as unsettled as Aizawa, could only nod in agreement.

* * *

Over in the area of the city were the bank and the one high-end restaurant were both located, the attacking warmonger monsters were picking up whatever they could-mailboxes, trash cans, other objects of similar size- and chucking them at the police cruisers that were parked outside of the bank and high-end restaurant. "Fucking humans!" one of the warmongers scowled at one of his fellow monsters, "They're keeping us from getting to raid the places that have the most spoils of war for us to take!"

"At least they're smart enough to protect their value," another warmonger replied as he yanked a mailbox out of the sidewalk and chucked it at a police cruiser, smashing the window of the driver side door and greatly denting the door itself. As those two warmongers and a few others were in the middle of trying to take down the police barricade, a third warmonger came jogging up to his fellows, staying behind respectable cover.

Jerking a thumb over his shoulder, the third warmonger said, "I noticed that the bank and that fancy human restaurant are pretty much the _only_ places that the humans are protecting. We can bust into other locations here to get some lesser loot, and maybe find a few hostages to take and use as bartering to make the police stand down and let us raid the bank and fancy restaurant!"

"Good idea," the first talkative warmonger said as he and the second one turned to regard the third, "But where can we go?"

Jerking a thumb over his shoulder again, the third warmonger said in a tone of mildly piqued interest, "That place behind us is some sort of school where the humans look after some of their defective kids."

The second warmonger, with a mildly confused and surprised look on his face, said, "Wait a minute, you're saying that the humans actually allow their defects to _live_?" After the third warmonger nodded twice in the affirmative, the second one laughed, "Ha! No wonder that humans are so damn weak! They don't have the balls to kill off their peoples' defective brats unlike _our_ races!" Gesturing for the first and third warmongers to follow him, the second one said, "Come on, let's go grab some of those defective human kids and use them as shields to-"

"LIKE HELL YOU'LL HARM THEM!" a vengeful, angry female voice roared out, cutting the second warmonger off and making him and his fellows look up in the direction the shout came from. To the horror of the gathered warmongers, Ryuko in her dragon form flew down from the sky, like a bolt from the blue, and slashed the second warmonger from the upper right side of his collarbone to the left side of his waist with such force she rended his internal organs, his bones, his flesh.

Not even bothering to waste any more attention on the warmonger whose torso she had just torn asunder, the Dragoon Hero immediately turned to focus her attention on the other two monsters that were aiming to take some of the kids at the academy as hostages. She had heard what they were going to do, heard their cruel words aimed towards the children.

Naturally, Ryuko became _absolutely livid_.

One cruel person already took the life of her late kid sister Anahthyne, and Ryuko refused to allow the same to happen to any other child, especially any of the ones that were in the academy behind her. The Dragoon Hero flew into a berserker rage when she heard what those monsters had declared, so after she tore out the chest cavity of one monster, Ryuko raked the torso of the one on her right while she used her left draconic hand to grab the one on her left.

Ryuko reached forward towards the warmonger on her left, her maw opened wide, and she brought her jaws crunching tight around warmonger's neck, mauling him without mercy. At the same time, she was multitasking as she raked the torso of the other warmonger, making him cry out in pain as the left hand (from his view) side of his rib cage was actually ripped off/out by the Dragoon Hero.

The few other warmongers, all of which were still involved in fighting against the police standoff, stopped short as some of their fellows were attacked by, what they were all horrified to see was, a _fucking dragon_. One of the warmongers that were distracted ended up taking a few shots from one of the human police, and when the others turned to see their fellow who was shot fall back, the pro heroes Mirko and Mt. Lady, followed by Detective Naomasa in his police cruiser, arrived on scene.

With the additional pro heroes on site, the police were able to stop and take out the remaining warmonger monsters. By the time all of the monsters laid either defeated or dead, the three female pro heroes went to talk to the police, with Yu and Ryuko transforming back to normal. "Thanks for showing up to assist us, heroes," a lieutenant-ranked police officer said as he and his fellows greeter Yu, Rumi and Ryuko while Naomasa parked and got out to go up to them, "We'll need your help in safeguarding the bank and that high-end restaurant."

Rumi, with a confused look on her face, replied, "…I was actually planning to protect that retirement home from the monsters. My grandaunt actually resides there."

"And Ryuko here is probably keen on protecting that school with the special needs kids," Yu remarked to the police, a comment that drew a nod of agreement out of the Dragoon Hero. Gesturing to the lieutenant, the pro hero Mt. Lady asked, "Why do you want us to focus more on the bank and that fancy restaurant?"

"Chief's orders," the lieutenant replied, "He believes that protecting the bank, which is where everyone keeps their money, and that high-end restaurant, where wealthy persons such as Ryoga Yaoyorozu and his family are known to dine at, are more important." Crossing his arms over his chest, the lieutenant said, "Personally, I would rather protect the places where the elderly citizens and those children respectively are cared for, rather than blatantly cater to the needs of the city's wealthy elite. The chief likewise seemed unhappy with having to give such orders, but he looked like he didn't have much of a choice in the matter."

Naomasa crossed his arms over his chest himself before saying, "Yeah, I have to say that I feel that something fishy is going on here." With a bit of an amused smirk, the detective jerked a thumb at the trio of female heroes and went on, "Luckily for us, pro heroes such as Mt. Lady, Mirko and Ryukyu are more inclined to prioritize protecting citizens than the pocket books of the wealthy big wigs that try to run things around here in the city."

The lieutenant nodded in agreement with Naomasa before turning to face the three female pro heroes. "Although I am obligated by orders from my chief to request your assistance in protecting the bank and the high-end restaurant from the attacking monsters, I by no means have the authority to force you three to help, as only the president of the HPSC has that authority to give direct orders to pro heroes such as you ladies. That being said, it would be great if you three were to help us, but I would be just as happy if you were to prioritize saving the citizens."

The three female pro heroes nodded in understanding, with Yu and Rumi saying that they'll head over to the retirement home to look after protecting the elderly citizens there while Ryuko stayed outside of the Autistic Children Development Care building to protect the children. Looking down at herself as she was still in her regular form, Ryuko suddenly realized that she was coated in warmonger blood from head to waist.

"…_I REALLY hope none of the kids see me like this_," the Dragoon Hero thought worriedly.

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER NINETEEN

Author's notes;

And the fiercest foes rout when they hear Ryuko's shout. All joking aside, this chapter continued the ongoing attack in the city that had been launched in the previous chapter, showing some of the folks from U.A. assisting in fighting the warmongers and getting civilians to safety. I also threw in a few scenes to focus on Mt. Lady, Mirko and Ryukyu, as I wanted the lady heroes to have a good bit of spotlight. I likewise gave some development to Ryukyu that her character is going to need for some minor bits that will crop up in the next few chapters.

Anyway, I'm sorry if the idea of seeing some of the BNHA heroes killing anything, even if it's a bunch of warmonger monsters that are very clearly evil bad guys, strikes any of you as bad, but given that the warmongers would otherwise stop at nothing when they aim to kill anyone and everyone that they can get their hands on, the heroes don't have much of a choice in the matter. But I have taken measures to show that, even though they kind of had to, the heroes aren't taking a lot of pleasure in having to take lives, with Mt. Lady getting at least one or two lines that suggest she has such reluctance to kill.

In this way, I am trying to show that I not only agree with how many superheroes are in the right for not wanting to kill, but also showing what they are capable off when the gloves come off. It's a good thing that superheroes, as a whole, like to keep the gloves _on_.

But I digress. The next chapter will see the heroes, both pros and students in-training, continuing to fight against the attacking warmonger monsters. I'm aiming to ultimately wrap things up in this mini arc in the next chapter; we should see the city-wide fighting draw to a close, along with cleanup and damage assessment. There will also, given the nature of the attack in the mini arc, sadly be a few casualties. No one really important, mind you, but it'll big enough to grab at least some attention (in-universe, at least). I will also try to wrap things up in other works that tie back to the monster siege event.


	20. Chapter 20

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter twenty: Total War part three- The dawn of victory

Over at Azu-Daioh High, while Izuku, Bakugo, Todoroki and Kirishima were all fighting warmongers in front of the main school building, a few of their classmates, those being Tsuyu, Uraraka and Kaminari, were fighting warmongers in the back area of the school, where the track field and other places for Physical Education were located. Kaminari fired a beam of electricity at a warmonger that hit him with such force, that the warmonger's chest ended up being pierced by the beam.

"Hot damn!" Kaminari exclaimed in surprised amusement as he brushed the side of his nose with his right thumb, "Did anyone else see what I just did right now?!" Pumping a fist into the air, the electric teen cheered, "Come on, people! You have to admit that was awesome!"

"What was with the name you gave that attack, Kaminari?" Tsuyu asked as she sat crouched in a frog-like position on the body of an unconscious warmonger that she had defeated.

Pointing to Tsuyu, Kaminari explained, "I was just trying out the 'Kaminari Beam', Tsuyu. It's kind of like the Kamehameha, except I replace the syllables of 'ka-me-ha-me-ha' with those in 'Ka-mi-na-ri-beam', and I use electricity instead of chi." Giving the frog-like girl a self-amused look, Kaminari asked, "What do you think?"

Holding a finger in front of her mouth in the physical tic like manner that she is known for, Tsuyu replied, "There are worse names that you could have come up with kero."

As Kaminari merely chuckled a bit at Tsuyu's dry response, the two of them heard one of the warmongers that was attacking Azu-Daioh High cry out in a freaked out tone. Looking over, both Kaminari and Tsuyu saw one such warmonger floating straight up into the air. Following the reverse path the floating troll must have taken, the two U.A. students saw that Uraraka was looking right up at the warmonger as he floated up into the air. It was clear to Kaminari and Tsuyu that the gravity girl had used her quirk on the monster that was floating in the air.

Bringing the fingerprints of her fingers together, Uraraka said, "Release." Suddenly, the floating warmonger shot straight down to the ground, landing in such a way that made his neck jerk and snap, resulting in his death.

"Damn, Uraraka!" Kaminari exclaimed, laughing a little bit in amusement, "That was one hell of a move you just pulled!"

Uraraka looked a bit exhausted, as well as guilty. To her fellow classmates, Uraraka said, "But it still doesn't change the fact that I just took a life."

"Kaminari here pierced the chest cavity of one of these evil monsters just now with a high-powered blast of lightning," Tsuyu pointed out to the gravity girl.

"And Aizawa-sensei told us that those monster government people that are worried about the attack on this city said that they have no problem with us using fatal force on these large hulking monster dudes," Kaminari added.

Gently shaking her head, Uraraka said, "But I still took a life." With a guilty expression, Uraraka said, "I just…I just can't help but wonder what…what _he_ would think about it…"

…

"DETROIT SMASH!" Izuku exclaimed as he punched a warmonger monster square in the jaw with an uppercut so fierce that it actually smashed his (the warmonger's) face in, knocking him over onto the ground where he laid very still. The fighting at Azu-Daioh High's front gate was still going on, and Izuku, along with Bakugo, Todoroki and Kirishima, were fighting all of the warmongers as the spilled in.

Looking over at where Izuku was standing over the orc he had just taken down, Bakugo let out a bark of very amused laughter. "Well fucking A, Deku! It looks like you just killed that one!" the explosive teen exclaimed, clearly amused.

"I…I still don't quite feel at ease with the idea of killing all of these guys," Izuku remarked in a concerned tone, "Even though they are monsters."

"They're a paramilitary group bent on wiping out the rest of their world, then going on to do the same to humans," Todoroki pointed out in casual calmness as he froze another warmonger in a large solid hunk of ice, "Their world's government is short-handed in dealing with them, so that's why said government's leaders came to request aid from us humans." Straightening himself out a bit, Todoroki continued, "Although I still have no way of knowing why, when the monster world's government came to U.A., all of the school's staff agreed to send as many of us as possible to help quell the paramilitary monster group."

"I think that Higari-sensei said something about the monster world's government putting a bounty on some guy named Hirajo?" Kirishima said, sounding like he was trying to remember details that were somewhat fuzzy to him. Kirishima said that as a warmonger was punching him in the back, quickly and repeatedly, but making no progress. In fact, Kirishima looked like he wasn't even aware that he was being punched in the back by that warmonger. But then again, he had his quirk active, so that probably helped.

Izuku, with a mildly curious look on his face, pointed to the warmonger standing behind Kirishima while saying to his fellow classmate, "Umm, Kirishima…"

Curious, the red-haired boy turned around and saw the warmonger trying to punch him, but doing so to no avail. "Oh, that," Kirishima remarked in an almost bored tone as he pulled his right fist back and threw it right at the warmonger's face, striking him with a devastating punch that sent him flying back. After the warmonger crashed into the wall surrounding the front area of Azu-Daioh High, it was clear that he had been knocked out cold. Turning back around to face his fellow classmates, Kirishima asked as he jerked a thumb over his shoulder to the knocked-out monster, "What do you guys think of that move just now, huh?"

Smirking a bit, Bakugo said, "I think that I am really going to enjoy today."

* * *

Minoru Mineta knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was going to be expelled from U.A.; his fellow classmates in class 1-A, as they were going to be given a very strong say in the matter, have all already made their intentions clear that all of them would vote to kick him out, with all of the girls (who Mineta still had the lewdest of thoughts towards) being particularly vindictive towards the infamous pervert, even thought Mineta had no idea why the girls all hated him as much as they did.

He had no clue about that at all.

Figuring that this monster attack on the city would be his last chance to have his last hurrah as any sort of hero, Mineta decided that he would go all out in being heroic. Using his sticky balls, Mineta was able to stick multiple warmongers in place to allow civilians to flee, or in the one case where he happened upon Fourth Kind and Edgeshot fighting a few warmongers, pin the monsters in place to give the pro heroes an edge in the fight.

At one point in his random running around, Mineta saw a few of the warmongers charge into what looked to the infamous pervert to be a large and fancy office building of some sort. Mineta figured that important people were in there thus would be targets for the attacking monsters, so the short-statured teen boy, despite how the coward part of his personality has been screaming at him nonstop ever since he was air-dropped into the city to run and hide until everything was over, ran right into the building, aiming to save those that he could.

…

The president of the Public Hero Safety Commission was attending a meeting with a few other notable persons of the Japanese populace, including the Prime Minister of Japan himself, when the monster attack happened. It was right when the President was reconsidering her decision in having turned down what all of the members of her advisory panel were telling her about having heroes look into investigating non-criminal and non-villain cases when a large group of nine warmonger monsters all stormed into the meeting room.

"Well, well, well!" the first warmonger said in clear amusement, "What do we have here? It looks like a get-together of all of the biggest human names in Japan!" Turning to face his fellow warmongers, the first monster said, "What do you say, boys? Should we hold them hostage for ransom, use them as bargaining chips in getting our hands on that bastard Hatsuharu and his family, or just straight up kill the humans?"

"I say we just kill them," the second warmonger to speak up said, "After all, I'm-GAHHH!"

The second warmonger was cut off when he felt something smack into his right foot. Looking down, he saw a bunch of purple sticky balls. Looking over, the warmongers saw Mineta come running into the room. "Stand down, foul monsters!" the infamous pervert declared as he pointed at the monsters with his right index finger while holding a sticky ball in his right hand "I, The Fresh-Picked Hero Grape Juice, am here to stop you!"

Mineta, to the bewildered surprise of the other humans, rushed in to confront all of the warmonger monsters. Mineta threw a lot of his sticky balls all over the place, striking a few of the monsters in the chest or on the sides of their arms. Sure, it did no real damage, but the sticky balls were something of a nuisance. Mineta was actually on something of a role, up until he was kicked in his hidden treasure by the first warmonger.

The kick actually sent Mineta flying, and as he flew the second warmonger threw a kick himself, which _also_ struck the infamous pervert in his little Mineta. Mineta turned around as he flew through the air, and the third warmonger, with an amused smirk on his face, swung his right foot up, striking Mineta's manly assets with a third kick in about roughly as many seconds. Mineta ended up being kicked by each of the warmongers, who were using him as something of a Hacky Sack, as he flew around from monster to monster.

…Also, each kick from the warmongers just so happened to end up striking Mineta in his coin purse. There was the first kick, then the second, then the third. The fourth kick, the fifth, the sixth…each of the human men in the room winced in sympathy as they heard each thwacking kick from the warmongers to Mineta, each pained squeal from the infamous pervert. It wasn't until Mineta had been kicked in his manly assets _nine separate times_, and in roughly as many seconds, that he had flown at the Prime Minister himself, being caught by him.

"Young man!" the Prime Minister exclaimed out of concerned worry for Mineta, "Are you going to be okay?" The only response Mineta would give was a squeaky, pained squeal.

"Feh, stupid humans," the first warmonger said as he tried to move forward, "You all will-" The first warmonger, as well as his fellows, all stopped when they tried to move but were held back by some manner of force. Looking down, the warmongers all saw that their feet were all covered in piles of purple sticky balls, which kept them all pinned and unable to escape, or in their case, move to go after and kill the big wig humans.

Seeing that the monsters were unable to go after them, the big wig humans all proceeded to run out of the meeting room, with Prime Minister personally carrying Mineta, as the short statured hero-in-training had made the ultimate sacrifice in order to incapacitate the monsters and allow him and the others in the meeting room to get away. The group of big wigs, about six in total, all entered a private elevator, quickly closing the door behind them.

The elevator took them to a private garage that the monsters failed to find. They all got into some cars that were tended to by valet drivers. The Prime Minister, who was accompanied by the President of the commission, got into his limo, and together the leader of Japan's government, the head of the Hero Public Safety Commission, the limo driver and the wounded Mineta all took off from the government meeting building.

In the back of the limo, the Prime Minister laid Mineta down next to him, allowing the brave hero-in-training to rest his (Mineta's) head on his (the Prime Minister's) lap. The infamous pervert had long since passed out from the pain of the punishment his scrotum had taken in his efforts to carry out his last hurrah as a hero. As Mineta laid there in the limo unconscious, the Prime Minister, with the look on his face showing his immense gratefulness to Mineta as well as concern for the damage the short-statured boy had suffered, gently stroked Mineta's forehead.

"This boy…" the Prime Minister said, his solemn tone showing how serious he was, "…He truly is one of the greatest heroes of this day."

"I'm curious," the President of the commission said as she leaned forward, reached into one of the back pockets on Mineta's pants, and pulled out his wallet. The President checked the wallet, and found Mineta's Provisional Hero License. She also found his U.A. High School student ID card. "…So he's a U.A. student," the President said as she put the cards back into Mineta's wallet. Placing the wallet back into Mineta's rear pocket she got it from, the President said to the Prime Minister, "I know Principal Nezu of U.A. I will surely bring to his attention what his student here did to save the two of us, as well as those were in the meeting with."

The Prime Minister nodded in agreement with the President as the limo sped off to take the two biggest names in Japan to safety. For his part, all Mineta did was moan in pain every so often as he was unconscious.

* * *

Enji Todoroki, also known at the current number one pro hero Endeavor, was surprised when a bunch of large, hulking muscular brutes were attacking the city, but his surprise stemmed solely from the fact that said hulking brutes were _not_ nomu, and in fact were never human at any point at all. Keigo Takami, also known as the current number two pro hero Hawks, flew overhead, firing a few feathers from his wings at some of the warmonger monsters, laying down support fire to back Endeavor up in the heroes' struggle against the monsters.

"This is totally unreal!" Hawks exclaimed, sounding more than a little surprised, as he and Endeavor fought the warmongers, with help from a few other heroes such as Kamui Woods and Gang Orca.

Striking a warmonger in the face with a Prominence Burn, Endeavor yelled back, "Tell me something I don't know!" Endeavor turned his attention back to look at the oncoming horde of warmonger monsters; the current number one pro hero was the only hero present actively trying to kill the warmongers, even though all of the present heroes are aware that monster world government is okay with the warmongers being killed by any heroes helping out with driving back the hordes.

Due to the reluctance of the other pro heroes to take lives, even the lives of literal monsters that are aiming to kill, Endeavor saw that he and the other heroes that were on the scene were getting a fair bit close to being overrun. The current number one hero blasted out a large volume of his fire, striking multiple warmongers and sending them reeling back. The group of five monsters ended up laying about a dozen feet away, all of them on fire.

"Grr…" Endeavor growled in annoyance. Turning to look at the other pro heroes that were on scene, the current number one shouted, "Come on, everyone! We have the go ahead to use lethal force on these monsters! So quit holding back and cut loose already!"

"Any killing, even if its of a dangerous monster, is something that I cannot bring myself to do!" Kamui Woods shot back, "It is not something that can be described as heroic!"

Endeavor could only growl once more, annoyed that this fighting was going to take forever since his fellow pro heroes that were with him were trying to be by-the-book types, especially in a situation where such examples aren't exactly needed. "_I just HAD to get stuck with goody_-_two shoes types_, _didn_'_t I_?" Endeavor thought in annoyance.

* * *

Back over at Azu-Daioh High, the fighting in the front of the school was still ongoing. "Damn it, these fuckers just won't stop coming, will they?!" Bakugo yelled as he killed his nineteenth warmonger (yes, he's keeping count, and he's slightly annoyed that Izuku has twenty-one kills).

"Well we can't stop, Baku-bro!" Kirishima yelled, "We can't let these monsters overrun the place and get to innocent civil-" The red-haired hardening quirk boy was cut off when one of the warmongers came up and grabbed him around his body, pinning his arms to his sides.

"Ha!" the warmonger who had Kirishima laughed, "About damn time that one of us managed to get the drop on-GACK!" Suddenly, the warmonger that was grabbing Kirishima let go of him in order to grasp as his throat, finding trouble in drawing breath. He felt as if something solid was suddenly filling of his throat, filling up his lungs. He was choking, gasping for whatever breath he could get, but none would come.

The four class 1-A boys watched with some degree of horror as the suffocating warmonger fell to its knees before falling over onto its side. Curiously enough, mushrooms began falling out of the dead warmonger's mouth, as well as sprout out of his nostrils. The other warmongers, which were still alive, were both horrified and confused by this, but one was impaled in the temples of his head by flying, lyre-shaped horns as another was slammed with a barrage of telekinetically controlled objects, some of which were sharp and hit in the right places to be fatal.

The boys of class 1-A got their answer as to what was killing the warmongers when Itsuka Kendo of class 1-B came running up to them, followed by the rest of the girls of 1-B as well. There were also three 1-B boys, those being Juzo, Hiryu and Togaru. It was Itsuka, with a hint of amusement on her face showing some degree of smugness, who walked up to the 1-A boys and asked, "You boys need some assistance?"

"Any and all help that we can get would be really appreciated, yes," Izuku replied as he nodded twice in thanks, with the other boys likewise nodding.

"Heh, hey Explosion Boy," Togaru smirked, "How many did you take out?"

Bakugo, with a mildly annoyed scowl, said, "I just killed my nineteenth before you showed up."

"Ha! I got _twenty_!" the mantis boy of 1-B laughed, eager to finally have the chance to show up the explosive teen, even if it was only having one more kill than him.

Pony gently shook her head and said, "No, Togaru only got two so far. He's lying." Togaru, with a mildly stunned and embarrassed look on his face, cast a glance at Bakugo, who only smirked in self-amusement as he flipped the mantis boy the middle finger.

Sighing in a resigned tone, Togaru said, "I wish you would have let me had that, Pony…"

"Come on, everyone!" Itsuka said as she clapped her hands together, "We've got to put all that sort of stuff to the side and focus on dealing with the attacking monsters!"

Gesturing to the 1-B students that showed up, Izuku asked, "Hey, is anyone else from your class here at Azu-Daioh High to help fight the warmongers?"

"Yeah, all of 1-B is here," Juzo explained, "Sekijiro-sensei and your homeroom teacher heard that there was a particularly high number of the monsters heading in the direction, with Sekijiro-sensei having gotten word that the monsters believe they can find some girl by the name of Mizore Shirayuki here. As such, he ordered all twenty of us to come here to help with fighting off the hordes of monsters."

Izuku let out a sigh of relief before remarking, "Oh, thank goodness we got some serious backup here! I was afraid that we might have gotten overrun at some point." The U.A. students all got into various smaller groups and proceeded to go about taking out the warmongers that were all flooding into Azu-Daioh High grounds. Izuku figured that he and his fellows in class 1-A were all getting worn out, but the timely arrival of backup from class 1-B breathed new life into their efforts to protect the civilians from the hordes of Hirajo.

Either way, Izuku figured that he had some stories to tell his mom Inko, as well as his girlfriend Mitsuki, when the fighting was over.

* * *

"I was not expecting that the heroes would receive help from Special Forces," U.A. teacher and pro hero Snipe said as he and two fellow marksmen, a black-haired man wearing a southern-style cloth poncho and a woman with long bright green hair, repeatedly fired their guns at the hordes of warmonger monsters on the ground below where they stood on the roof of a corner pharmacy store somewhere in the city where all of the fighting was taking place. As the woman with long green hair scored a fatal headshot on a warmonger that yanked a mailbox out of its fastenings in the sidewalk, Snipe continued, "Especially from all the way from Magnolia Town!"

"Well when Bisca, the rest of Fairy Tail and I all saw all of the quest requests for people to come here to fight a bunch of monsters on the quest board in the guild hall, as well as how much each quest posting was offering, there wasn't much giving the guild a reason to say no!" the man with black hair replied as he fired shots from the dual pistols he was wielding, striking multiple hits on the monsters below.

With an amused chuckle, the woman with long green hair, apparently named Bisca, replied, "Alzack here is right. Besides, those quest requests all involved fighting a bunch of monsters. A lot of us in Fairy Tail can't turn down the chance to fight a bunch of enemies."

Over in that same area of the fighting in the city, a woman from Fairy Tail, with this woman wearing metal plate armor, was controlling a great number of swords that flew around her. This woman, with her long crimson hair flowing, thrusted her right hand forward, making the swords she was controlling fly right at the warmongers, impaling all of them; a particularly unlucky warmonger was impaled by three swords, with one in his gut, one in his chest and one _through his skull_.

Three other Fairy Tail members were fighting in the same area. One had salmon pink hair and wore a white scarf, one had shoulder length dark hair and wore no shirt, and the third had long, jet black hair and he was covered with small metal studs. These three mages threw fire, ice and iron magic at all of the warmongers that they attacked, taking out scores of enemies as the three of them fought side by side against the hordes.

At one point, Snipe saw the mage with long black hair turn his right arm into a giant iron beam, raise it up into the air, then bring it swinging down on some of the warmongers, busting two shoulders and crushing at least three heads. "…Wow, and here I thought that some of what pro heroes such as myself can do is crazy," the marksmen pro hero remarked, "I think you mages have us heroes beat in the crazy department."

"Oh, this is just related to how we're specifically Fairy Tail mages," the black haired gunman, apparently named Alzack, remarked to Snipe, "A lot of the other mage guilds in Fiore are a lot calmer than us." With an amused smirk, Alzack continued, "But if you want crazy, you should see some of the other Special Forces that responded to the request for aid from the government of the monster world."

Snipe turned to face Alzack, a curious look on the pro hero's face, even though you couldn't actually see said look due to Snipe's mask. "…You mean to say that there are other forces here helping the pro heroes quell the monster attack?" Snipe asked, "Who else came?"

* * *

Back at Azu-Daioh High, in the back area of the school grounds, Uraraka, Kaminari and Tsuyu were surprised to see a lot of 1-B students flood in and join in on attacking the warmongers. "Thank you," Monoma said as he passed by Uraraka while patting the side of her face, copying her quirk before he used it on a warmonger to make him float high into the air before making him crash back down to the ground, landing in a manner that resulted in his neck snapping.

"I hope you 1-A guys weren't given too much trouble!" Shihai said to the 1-A students as he used his quirk to merge into the black-colored pants of a warmonger, popping out every so often to jab the monster with a pocket knife (black blade plus black handle) before merging back into his pants, essentially playing some morbid version of whack-a-mole that the monster was clearly on the losing end of.

Looking around, Uraraka said, "Hey, I don't see all of you guys from 1-B here."

"The girls, Juzo, Hiryu and Togaru are assisting your classmates Midoriya, Bakugo, Todoroki and Kirishima in the front area of the school," Nirengeki Shoda explained after striking a warmonger and blasting him away, "And Kosei, Yosetsu and Tetsutetsu all ran into the school after they learned that your classmates Yaoyorozu, Sero and Ashido are currently inside." The gravity girl looked around at the members of 1-B that were present; Shoda and all the boys aside from those he mentioned were somewhere else where here backing her, Kaminari and Tsuyu up, so all of 1-B was on Azu-Daioh grounds and accounted for.

Using her quirk to make another warmonger float up into the air, Uraraka remarked as she released the anti-gravity power, "I hope that the girls and Sero inside the school are okay." Right when Uraraka said the last word in the sentence she just finished, the warmonger that she was floating came crashing down, landing in a manner that resulted in his death. Uraraka was rather worried about when all of this fighting was going to end, even though the hordes of monsters seemed to be endless by this point.

* * *

After they had given the fleeing Azu-Daioh High students time to flee, Mina, Sero and Yaoyorozu were trying to find a place to either hide or wait out the rest of the fighting, mostly due to Yaoyorozu having used her quirk more than she should have by this point; her face had a slight hint of being shallow, and assets seemed to be somewhat smaller. She was also panting in exhaustion, and the way that her eyes were fluttering somewhat made it clear she was having trouble staying awake.

"Damn, Yaoyorozu's in terrible shape," Sero remarked in a mildly worried tone as he passed a glance at his and Mina's wealthy classmate.

"I'm…*huff* *huff*…fine," Yaoyorozu insisted as she tried to stand on her own. Barely able to get to her feet, Yaoyorozu continued with a hint of determination in her tone, "I can still help with fighting all of the-"

Yaoyorozu was cut off when she, as well as Mina and Sero, both cried out in surprise when the door to the classroom they were hiding in burst open, flying off its hinges as a warmonger came stalking into the classroom. Looking at the three U.A. students for a few moments, the monster pointed at them and, with a mildly confused look on his face, said, "Hey, none of you look like the Shirayuki brat that Warlord Hirajo and the rest of the horde is looking for!"

"Shit," Mina snapped under her breath as she and Sero took to standing before the warmonger, keeping the exhausted Yaoyorozu behind them, "This is a really bad time to-"

Mina found herself cut off when a sturdy, metal pipe trust through the side of the warmonger's abdomen, impaling him and making him cry out in angered pain. "You better leave Momo and her classmates in 1-A alone, you son of a bitch!" a male voice snarled, catching the attention of mina, Yaoyorozu and Sero. Looking over to her side slightly, it was Mina who spotted Yosetsu Awase, standing behind the warmonger.

The welding quirk boy of 1-B placed his hands on the back of the warmonger where the metal pipe was sticking out of. Touching both the warmonger's back and the pipe at the same time, Yosetsu used his quirk to weld the two of them together, making it so that the pipe can't be yanked out of the warmonger. It was bad enough for the monster that the pipe was impaling him through his abdomen, but he flinched in even greater pain when he grabbed it and tried to yank it out, only to fail to do so as if the pipe wouldn't so much as budge.

Looking over at the 1-A students, Yosetsu saw the terrible shape Yaoyorozu was in and said, "What the hell happened to Momo?! Is she okay?!"

"I…I just used my quirk a bit more than I should have in all honesty," Yaoyorozu replied, "I'm just really low on stored lipids right now." Yosetsu ran in to assist the 1-A students while Mina rushed past him; aiming her fist at the warmonger's head, Mina fired a large volume of her acid at the monster's open mouth, getting a lot of it in his mouth and down his throat.

As the monster fell over and thrashed in extreme pain (made worse because he fell on his side where the metal pipe was sticking out of), Yosetsu said, "I passed by the cafeteria of this school, and it looks relatively safe. You think it would help if we should get Momo there and get her something to eat?"

Sero nodded in agreement while saying, "That can't hurt." Yosetsu ended up joining Mina, Sero and Yaoyorozu as the four of them ran out of the classroom, with Yosetsu carrying Yaoyorozu bridal style as she was at that point too worn out and running low to continue effectively. Along the way, the four of them ran into Kosei and Tetsutetsu.

"Geez, she doesn't look good!" Kosei remarked as he gestured to the slimmed rich girl in his classmate's arms.

"We just need to get her something to eat is all," Mina explained to the 1-B boys, "Your bud here with us said that the cafeteria at this school is-" The pink-skinned girl was cut off when a loud crashing sound came from one of the ends of the hallway. Looking over, the U.A. students saw three early sixties persons and a large dog with an eyepatch and missing ear fight some of the warmonger monsters.

The three early sixties persons were a man with pink shoulder length hair, another man that had long blonde hair in a men's ponytail, and a woman with scruffy brown hair and red facial markings on her cheeks. All of them wore headbands that had metal plates with etchings of stylized leaves on them. "Hot damn!" the pink-haired man exclaimed as he slashed the throat of a warmonger with a kunai knife, "Wait until we tell our respective grandkids back in Konoha about how we fought against actual straight-up literal monsters in an attack on a civilian city! They will be so impressed with us!"

"Focus on fighting the monsters, Harold!" the dog with the eyepatch scolded (the U.A. students, despite how their principal was a talking animal, were surprised to see the talking dog), "We can't afford to dilly-dally around here, especially since Konoha had to spare some reserves to help with repelling the monster attack here! There's only so much Konoha presence here since we and our allies are still involved in the fifth great ninja war!"

While the three seniors and the talking dog fought the warmongers, the man with the long blonde ponytail spotted the U.A. students. "…Hey, you kids look like you're from one of the hero high schools that the bros and I were briefed about before multiple teams from Konoha were deployed to this area to assist with stopping the monster attack," the older blonde man said, "You kids are all okay, aren't you?"

Gesturing to Yaoyorozu, Mina said, "Our classmate here overused her quirk and now she's really low on lipids or whatever the fuck she calls them. We need to get her to someplace where she can get a lot of something to eat and replenish herself. We were on our way to the cafeteria when you and your pals over there came in fighting those monster."

The older blonde man nodded in understanding before he turned to face his friends that were behind him fighting the monsters. "Oi, Harold, Tsume, Kuromaru! I'm going to escort these teens to the cafeteria so their friend can get a bite to eat!" the older blonde man said.

Shooting the older blonde man a thumbs-up, the pink-haired older man, apparently named Harold if the talking dog is to be believed, said, "Go for it, Inoichi! The lads and I here can hold down the fort until you get back!" The older blonde man, now identified as Inoichi, nodded in response as he had the group of U.A. students turn around and run in the direction of Azu-Daioh High's cafeteria, running with them to keep an eye on them and make sure that they stay safe.

* * *

Outside of Azu-Daioh High, over in the front area where Izuku and the others were all fighting, they heard an excited cheer call out from overhead. They looked up, as did the warmongers in that area, only to see Mei Hatsume fly overhead with some combination of jetpack and rocket boots, as she pressed a button on a control that she held in her right hand. Mini rockets flew out of her jetpack and targeted the warmongers, hitting multiple as she flew overhead in a sort of arc-shaped curve. "Oh yeah, that was a nice one!" the eccentric pink-haired girl cheered as she flew back around to drop air strikes on more monsters.

One warmonger, who was holding a green metal sign post that had holes in it along the length, looked up and was aiming to throw the metal post he held to try and hit Hatsume. "Hey, big guy," the warmonger heard someone call out to him.

"What the hell do you-" the warmonger responded to the call, only to stop short as a blank look overtook his face; he stood there, looking dazed. The dazed warmonger didn't even notice it when Hitoshi Shinso, who had used his brainwashing quirk on the warmonger, came walking up to him, a look of seriousness on his face.

"**Shove that sign post through the side of your neck**," Shinso ordered the warmonger that was enthralled by his brainwashing. Complying, the warmonger shoved the sign post through the right side of his neck; when he did, the extreme pain of him gouging his own throat out made the warmonger exclaim and gurgle out in pain as he fell to his knees before falling over and bleeding out to death on the ground.

Shinso turned and saw a few other warmongers try charging at him. Using the skills that he learned through being personally tutored by Aizawa, Shinso jumped back while quickly taking out some caltrops and casting them in the path the warmongers were taking. A good number of them ran into the caltrops and fell back as they cried out in pain, their feet having trampled over the metal spiky traps.

The brainwasher saw one of the warmongers run around the caltrops, so he ran up to that warmonger, skillfully used his capture weapon to ensnare the warmonger and, using momentum, jumped and seemingly glided around the monster until he was behind him. Holding onto the warmonger's left shoulder from behind, Shinso took out a hunting knife, held it in his right hand and held it against the warmonger's neck. A simple, unceremonious slash across the monster's throat was all Shinso needed to do to lay the monster low.

After he killed the warmonger with his hunting knife, Shinso looked up and saw his fellows from U.A. finish off the warmongers that ran into his caltrops. "You all think that this fighting is going to end soon?" Shinso said after the monsters were killed. There was a relative break from all of the fighting at the moment, so the brainwasher was using the time to collect his caltrops.

Izuku looked like he was going to open his mouth to say something to the class 1-C student, but he was cut off when an intercom system spreading all over the city called out. "Students of U.A.," the familiar voice of Aizawa called out over the city-wide intercom, "This is class 1-A's homeroom teacher Shota Aizawa speaking. All U.A. students are being ordered to fall back to safety. The fighting is winding down, and what's left can be handled by the teachers, other pro heroes, and the various groups of Special Forces that have come in at the request of the monster world government. Repeat, all U.A. students are ordered to fall back."

Shinso let out a relieved sigh as he fell back, landing moderately hard on his butt. "Oh thank goodness we can get the hell out of here," Shinso remarked, more to himself than to anyone else, "Aizawa-sensei, you are a lifesaver."

"You can thank your father for bailing us out later," Todoroki remarked to the brainwasher as he got up off of the ground, with a hand up from Juzo, "For now, we need to regroup with everyone else here and leave the fighting to the pros and Special Forces." The group of U.A. students there got together with the rest of the U.A. students on Azu-Daioh High grounds before all of them left the fighting area as a group.

"Aizawa-sensei is not my father," Shinso remarked to the half-n-half quirk boy as all of the U.A. students that were at Azu-Daioh High left the area.

* * *

By late afternoon that day, all of the fighting all over the city had officially been ended. The teachers of U.A., when they returned to see how their students were doing, were all concerned for the well-being of the students when they walked into one of the dorm buildings and saw a lot of the participating students all laying around, moaning in exhaustion and otherwise just way too worn out from all of the effort they gave today.

Looking over to see Aizawa and Hizashi walk into Heights Alliance, Izuku said, "Aizawa-sensei, Hizashi-sensei, is everything over?"

"If by that you mean the fighting, then yes Midoriya," Aizawa replied, his tone clearly somber. Letting out a resigned sigh, the underground hero said as his students began to gather around, "I got back just now with Hizashi here from a meeting with the rest of the teachers and Nezu concerning the damages that were suffered during the attack. Thankfully, no students from any of the schools that were attacked were killed, neither were any hero course students that took part in the fighting. However…" Aizawa let out another sigh before he said, "Four pro heroes were killed by the monsters during the attack."

The U.A. students were shocked to hear that four heroes fell in the fighting, even though when Aizawa confirmed which heroes were killed, there was some amount of relief that none of those who were killed were notable, important heroes. Even so, the loss of even one pro hero was enough to lower the spirits of the U.A. students. Izuku especially so, due to how much of a hero fanboy he is; the green-haired cinnamon roll was the only one present out of the U.A. students who recognized all four of the heroes that were killed.

"A few places were likewise destroyed or severely damaged," Hizashi supplied, "At least eighty percent of the buildings over on Ketsubutsu Academy High School grounds were wrecked, meaning that the students there will have to resume classes at other hero high schools." Crossing his arms over his chest, the pro hero Present Mic continued, "I also heard it from Aizawa here that there as this one girl that was looking to enroll at Ketsubutsu, but that plan's been shot due to all of the damage the school building have suffered during the monster attack."

"Thank goodness no one over there was killed," Aizawa added, then continued with a look of mild concern on his face, "But I did hear that Emi had to be rushed to the hospital due to getting one of her legs broken during the attack." Letting out a resigned sigh, Aizawa said, "Also, one of the things that Nezu made a decision on at the meeting we just came from concerns what's to be done with Mineta's punishment in regards to his actions during the field trip we recently got back from over in the United States."

"Aww yeah!" Mina said in an excited tone, looking like she was expecting to hear some of the best news ever; the other girls in the room looked likewise expectant.

Letting out a breath, the underground hero said to his gathered students, "Nezu's decision on the matter here in final. Your classmate Mineta…" Sighing once more as he saw the looks on all of his students' faces, Aizawa said, "…will _n__ot_ be expelled from U.A." As Aizawa expected, a lot of the gathered students, all of the girls in particular, all cried out in complaint.

"Listen, little dudes," Hizashi began to explain, "Your pal Mineta was severely injured when he saved half a dozen civilians from being killed by monsters. If U.A. expelled him after he had done something that very much fits the bill of being heroic, then it wouldn't look all that good on the school." With a shrug, Hizashi continued, "Not only that, but two of the people who Mineta saved are the President of the Hero Public Safety Commission and the Prime Minister of Japan." Crossing his arms over his chest, the pro hero Present Mic remarked, "…Yeah, your classmate seriously saved the lives of two of the most important people in our nation. He's being hailed as a national hero on national news as we speak."

All of the girls in 1-A all cried out in annoyed complaint, as did most of the 1-B girls that were also present; Ibara even angrily exclaimed at the top of her lungs, "GOD FUCKING DAMMIT!" Although a few people turned to regard the devout Christian taking the lord's name in vain with surprised looks, given how pious Ibara usually acts, no one could honestly blame her for doing so, given what they had just been informed about the infamous pervert.

"There's…one other thing to consider here," Aizawa said to all of the gathered U.A. students. Gesturing to all of them, Aizawa said, "You kids all just got back from fighting monsters. Not nomu created by the League of Villains, not monstrous-looking quirked humans, but straight up, actually legit _literal_ monsters, like ghosts and goblins from fairy tales that you would read when you were little brats. There are threats well beyond criminals and quirked villains, an idea that the President of the PHSC now acknowledges as a real thing that has to be dealt with, especially since a few pro heroes actually were killed by said monsters."

Lowering his arm he was using to gesture with, Aizawa said, "We literally cannot afford to lose any more heroes, pros or otherwise. We're going to be needing as many hands on deck as we can get ahold of, because who can say if this is the last major mess that we're going to have to be dealing with here?"

"Grape Head will still get punished for the stunt he pulled while we were over in the United States, right?" Bakugo asked.

Gently nodding his head, Aizawa remarked, "Don't worry, Mineta will still be punished. However, his severe injury he suffered due to being kicked in the balls nine separate times by some of the monsters, along with how he saved the PHSC president and the Prime Minister, has prompted Nezu to lower my non-expulsion punishment from extra chores for the rest of the year to just for the next seven days."

The U.A. students that were present were all annoyed that Mineta, given what he did while class 1-A was over in the United States on their recent field trip, was getting off as light as he was, holding the fact that he was a lucky son of a bitch who just so happened to save the lives of two of the single most important people in Japan as the main reason why Mineta was practically getting off scot-free. Sure, the infamous pervert still had to do a week of extra chores around the dorm buildings, and some of the students (mainly Bakugo) found it hilarious that Mineta was kicked in the balls a total of nine separate times by some of the warmongers, but all of them, even the ones in 1-B, were all banking on Mineta being kicked out of U.A.

Sighing in a resigned tone, Ibara muttered to herself as she crossed her arms over her chest, "God fucking dammit."

END, CHAPTER TWENTY

Author's notes;

And with that, the monster attack mini arc is now over, even though the 'Monster War arc' as a whole will still go one for a couple of more chapters at least. Things will be continuing on from here in the 'Monster War arc', before moving on to the fourth arc and arcs beyond that. Things are going to be coming together for something big, and the good folks of U.A. High School will be playing a notable part in all of it.

Anyway, the next chapter will see some more fallout from all of the chaos that had occurred during the monster attack mini arc, including some decisions that Nezu has made in regards to how things are U.A. will be done proceeding forward. Said decisions will include some changes to some rosters which, believe it or not, have been hinted at a few times since the first chapter of this current arc. What sort of change am I talking about here specifically, you might ask?

…Well, you're going to have to stick around to find out.


	21. Chapter 21

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter twenty-one: New changes, new faces, old feelings, old friends

Izuku Midoriya and his mother Inko were having dinner out with Mitsuki Bakugo and her son Katsuki. A few days ago, the city was recently struck by an attack from a large group of big, muscular monsters, like trolls and ogres and the likes. These warmongers, who made up the hordes of Hirajo, were aiming to first and foremost kill a man named Hatsuharu Shirayuki, as well as his teenage daughter, as well as cause whatever damage that they could. The attack was ultimately foiled, and Izuku even heard that a teen boy around his and Bakugo's age, by the name of Tsukune Aono, had killed Hirajo himself.

…However, not all was well for the heroes and their various allies in the fighting; four pro heroes, a good number of civilians both humans and good monsters alike, and an undisclosed number of the Special Forces that came in to help, were killed during the events of the monster attack. Furthermore, there was untold damage to a lot of buildings and whatnot. Ketsubutsu Academy High School, in particular, was wrecked to the point that its students had to resume classes elsewhere while repairs are made, although thankfully no one over there was killed, and the worst that was suffered was Ms. Joke getting her right shin broken; it will need a cast, and the Smile Hero will need a wheelchair to get around in until she healed.

What was the real topic of discussion as the Midoriyas and the Bakugos had dinner together at that restaurant was all of the changes that were bound to occur, now that something as big and out of left field as the monster attack had taken place. "I heard a rumor that class sizes in the hero course classes over at U.A. may be increased," Bakugo said after he chewed and swallowed a bite of the salmon he got for his meal.

Nodding in confirmation, Izuku said, "Yeah, Kacchan, I heard it from All Might himself. Both our class and 1-B will go up from twenty students each to twenty-five students each."

"…You and Katsuki are getting five new classmates, sweetness?" Mitsuki asked in a curious and mildly surprised tone as she regarded the green-eyed boy that was her much younger boyfriend, "Huh, neat." After taking a sip from her drink, the ashy-haired woman said to Izuku, "So babe, do you have any idea who you and Katsuki will have in your class now?"

Gently shaking his head in the negative, Izuku replied, "Sorry, Mitsuki, but even All Might had no idea who Principal Nezu was putting into 1-A with me and Kacchan. However, we will find out tomorrow, as I was told Aizawa-sensei will introduce the five new 1-A students to the rest of us at the beginning of class."

"I bet that you boys are both excited to have new classmates, huh?" Inko asked in a casual, conversational tone after taking a bite from the steak she got. Chewing and swallowing her bite, the full-bodied woman said, "I hope the both of you will get along with them."

Nodding in agreement, Bakugo said, "No need to worry, Mrs. M. I don't see any reason why the new kids will give me and Deku any trouble." Izuku was, once again, surprised to see Bakugo act as polite as he was acting, addressing Inko as a young respectful child would when they talk to their grandparent. The green-haired cinnamon roll was happy seeing that his mother becoming something of a surrogate grandmother to the explosive teen, having more of an influence in said teen's life, has really done a number to help curve Bakugo's less favorable traits.

Maybe things would be different if a kind, still firm if need be but overall gentle person like Inko had more of a role in Bakugo's life since way back in the day. Who knows how things would have turned out like if Inko was around a lot more for the ashy-blonde haired boy?

"Well either way, make sure you boys treat your new classmates with respect," Inko said to both Izuku and Bakugo, "They will be new to the class, and the last thing that they will be needing is anyone giving them trouble."

"Inko, you've got to stop sweating it," Mitsuki remarked in a casual tone, "Both my brat and that cute sexiness that you call your son are students in U.A. They'll both keep an eye on things and make sure that nothing goes awry for the new students." Inko nodded in agreement with Mitsuki, although she did roll her eyes when the ashy-haired woman made a flirtatious remark about Izuku. As for Bakugo, he scoffed in annoyance, still very much unamused by the fact that his mom was dating fucking Deku.

Izuku, for his part, was a bit embarrassed that Mitsuki was being as flirtatious as she was being. The green-haired cinnamon roll was still not all that used to romantic attention from girls.

* * *

The following morning at U.A. High School, the students of class 1-A were sitting around in their homeroom, waiting for Aizawa to come in and get to discussing the various changes that U.A. was making in the wake of the recent monster attack. As it turned out, about half of the class already heard about the rumors of how five new students will be put into 1-A and 1-B each, giving both classes twenty-five students total.

"You guys think that Aizawa-sensei will be able to deal with the class when the size goes up to twenty-five students?" Uraraka asked as she conversed with Izuku, Tenya and Todoroki, "He gets annoyed with some of what we as a whole do, so wouldn't throwing more students into the class make things worse for him?"

"Aizawa-sensei sees the need just as much as the rest of the school staff here at U.A.," Tenya said to his classmate, "They acknowledge the fact that there is now, more so than ever, a greater need to have as many heroes on hand as possible." Crossing his arms over his chest, the class rep of 1-A remarked with a hint of mild annoyance in his tone, "It's one of the reasons why we have to accept it that Principal Nezu chose not to allow Mineta's expulsion."

"Oh come on," Mineta's voice called out, making the four friends turn to see the infamous pervert come walking up to them. Bakugo, Sero, Kirishima and Kaminari, all of them with mildly unamused looks on their faces, were standing close by, watching to see what Mineta was going to do or say. "I said that I learned my lesson," Mineta complained.

Scoffing as he crossed his arms over his chest, Bakugo remarked, "Then why did you say that you were hoping we'd get some, as you had put it, 'hot new babes' in class, Grape Head?"

Shrugging, Mineta replied, "Can you fault a guy for trying?"

"Mineta, you weren't kicked out because you were lucky enough to rescue the right people, also there is literally no room to get rid of any heroes right now," Kaminari pointed out, his scowl on his face looking very much unamused, "Even so, you are on some really thin ice, man." A lot of people in 1-A were still annoyed that, even with what all Mineta did while they were on their recent field trip to the United States, the most Mineta was getting off with was extra chores and duties around the dorms for a week.

Mineta would have mounted a response to his (very much tentative at this point) friend, but the short-statured boy was cut off when the door to the classroom opened, drawing everyone's attention and making them turn to see Aizawa walk into the classroom. "Everyone, sit your butts in your seats now," the underground hero said, making everyone scramble to get to their seats if they weren't there already. Letting out a tired sigh, Aizawa said, "As you all know, the recent monster attack has made it clear to the hero community that there is a greater need, now more so than ever, to have as many hands on deck as can be scrounged up."

Straightening up some files he had with him, Aizawa said, "As such, a number of changes are going to be made around here at U.A. The first big one being that Principal Nezu has ordered an increase to the class sizes for the hero courses. As I am certain some of you may already know, we will be getting five new brats joining us here in 1-A. Likewise, Sekijiro and his brats over in 1-B will be getting five new brats as well. Both classes will be at a count of twenty-five students, giving us a combined fifty between the two of us."

Gesturing to the door leading into the classroom, Aizawa said while still facing his students, "I'll now take the moment to introduce you all to your new classmates." Turning to look at the door, the underground hero said, "You can come in now, young man!" The door opened, making the twenty students in the room so far turn to look to see who it was that was entering the classroom to join them in 1-A. To the surprise of a lot of them, the first new student that they were getting was none other than Hitoshi Shinso.

Turning to regard his first twenty students, Aizawa said, "I'm certain that all of you know who Shinso is, so I won't bother to beat around the bush and introduce him. Now, he was originally slated to start in the hero course next semester, but due to the increased need for heroes, U.A. was able to get Shinso into the hero course ahead of schedule."

Nodding once to his new classmates, the brainwasher remarked, "Hmm. Here's to working alongside you guys here in 1-A."

"Shinso isn't the only one joining us here who was already a U.A. student," Aizawa said to his class, "We also have-" Aizawa was cut off when the door was forcefully thrown open by the force of an explosion, but not the kind that Bakugo was known for. It was a certain different kind of explosion, one that was all too familiar to a lot of the students in 1-A.

From outside of the 1-A classroom, a familiar female voice called into the classroom, "Heh, heh. Sorry about that, Aizawa-sensei. One of the babies that I brought with me blew up."

Sighing in a resigned tone, Aizawa replied, "Just get in here, Hatsume." As many could have predicted due to the explosion, Mei Hatsume was the second student to walk into the 1-A classroom. What was more notable was that she was wearing her workshop outfit, rather than the standard girls uniform for U.A. "According to Principal Nezu, Hatsume here has all the needed qualifications to be placed into the hero course," Aizawa explained, "As such, she ended up being placed here in 1-A with the lot of you."

"We're getting Crosshair Eyes?! Seriously?!" Bakugo nearly shouted.

"And why is she not in the proper girl's uniform?" Tenya asked as he did his signature hand-chopping gesture, "It is a requirement at all times to-"

Pointing at Tenya to get him to stop, Aizawa said, "Chill, Iida. The last uniform top she had was ruined because she used it as an oil rag, so until she gets some new tops she'll be allowed to wear whatever." Straightening himself up a bit, the underground hero continued, "Anyway, who here had heard about how Isamu Academy High School was shut down due to multiple building code violations, very gross misconduct by the staff and being discovered to have gone unaccredited for over a year and a half, among numerous other things?"

A number of the students in 1-A raised their hands, showing that the news that Aizawa spoke of was not all that hard to hear about. "I actually got something of a firsthand account of Isamu-gate from my friend Habuko, who went to Isamu Academy before it ended up getting shut down by the Commission," Tsuyu explained as she stood up from her desk, "Some of the stuff she told me over the phone that went down over at Isamu was so bad that I had to send my younger siblings Satsuki and Samidare out of the room because I didn't want either of them to hear any of what Habuko was telling me about kero."

"You…actually know Habuko, Asui?" Aizawa remarked, arching a wry eyebrow out of piqued interest. With a shrug, Aizawa said, "Well then, that will make things easier for her." Turning to face the door leading into the classroom, Aizawa said, "Mongoose, get in here so the rest of the students can meet you!" At that prompting, a girl that had a snake-like neck and snake-like head, with a mass of bushy reddish hair on her head, walked into the classroom, wearing a copy of the U.A. girl's uniform.

Tsuyu gasped in shocked surprise to see that her old friend from middle school was now not only in U.A. with her, but they both were in 1-A together as well. Gesturing to Habuko, Aizawa said to his students, "Habuko here is the only student from Isamu that was able to get into U.A. The experiences that she and her fellow students had back at her old school are still something of a hot dumpster fire that is still something of a topic in local news, so don't ask her any questions about it unless she's willing to share."

The rest of the students in 1-A, even Shinso and Hatsume, all nodded in agreement, showing that they would be respectful of their new snake-like classmate. As for the snake-like girl herself, Habuko nodded once in acknowledgement to her new classmates at her new school. "If there is time later, there are a few stories that I'm pretty sure all of you would get a kick out of," Habuko remarked, "So don't worry. I've got a lot to dish on."

After Habuko stood off to the side with Shinso and Hatsume, Aizawa turned to face his base twenty students. "…Mongoose isn't the only student joining us from another hero high school," the underground hero said, "We actually got a student who transferred here to U.A. from Vulcan High, due to being unable to put up with improper criticism from others for something beyond their control."

The 1-A students, upon hearing that they were getting a new student that was previously a student over at Vulcan High, the very school they had that tournament against, had a wide mix of reactions. The self-proclaimed greatest rival to U.A. by no means left a good impression on the U.A. community; in fact, a certain student from Vulcan was considered by many to be far from hero material, what with how he acted during the aforementioned tournament.

Because of that, the students of 1-A were worried that it was that specific student that they were getting, given what Aizawa said about the Vulcan High transfer getting 'improper criticism from others for something beyond their control'. So as one can imagine, when a familiar fat cat girl was told to enter the classroom by Aizawa and went on to stand off to the side next to Shinso, Hatsume and Habuko, pretty much everyone in 1-A relaxed. Gesturing over to where Sakaki Yamamaya stood, Aizawa said to his students, "Let me just make one thing clear to all of you. Sakaki's parents transferred her to U.A. due to how she was facing undue harassment and belittling over her obesity, which is a side effect of her quirk thus is not something she can do much of anything about."

Giving the 1-A students a serious look, the underground hero said, "Teasing someone over their appearance when said appearance is due to the side effect of a quirk thus cannot be helped will NOT be tolerated here at U.A. Likewise, general teasing of anyone over their appearance will not be tolerated. Do I make myself clear, everyone?" Everyone in 1-A all nodded in agreement, knowing full well that their new classmate must have had to deal with a lot; some of those already in 1-A have had to deal with similar trouble themselves, so they could very much relate to the fat cat girl.

Straightening up a bit, Aizawa said, "Finally, we have the last student who is joining us. Originally, she would have gone to Ketsubutsu, but due to the massive damage most of the buildings over on Ketsubutsu grounds suffered in the recent monster attack, she ended up being enrolled here instead." Turning to face the door, Aizawa called out, "You can come in now, young lady." Some of the students in the classroom noticed that Aizawa sounded notably gentler of tone when he called for the last new student to enter the classroom.

After no response for a few seconds, Aizawa asked Shinso to go out and check for the last new student. The brainwasher did so, and a second or so after he left the classroom, Shinso came back in leading a fair-skinned girl with light green hair in a shoulder-length bob cut. She wore the standard U.A. girl's uniform, albeit with the addition of a long-sleeved shirt worn under the top of her uniform; this long-sleeved shirt was of a shade of green similar to the girl's hair.

This new girl also wore green knee socks and white shoes with green soles and light, bright red shoelaces, and a simple charm necklace with the charm being of a similar shade of red as her shoelaces. To the piqued interest of a lot of the students in 1-A, the new girl was looking straight at the floor and not looking up at anyone.

Gesturing to the new girl, Aizawa said, "This is Eunice Sirknight. Just so you know, there will be times where Eunice will occasionally have to be called out of class to attend special sessions with Hound Dog over at his office, so don't be surprised if she suddenly has to leave if we're in the middle of doing something as a class, alright?"

"Sir, if I may ask a question," Tenya said as he stood up from his desk, both his tone and expression containing honest curiosity, "What do you mean by 'special class with Hound Dog'? If this will potentially disrupt the normal course of class, when we must be able to plan ahead so as to minimize the overall disruption."

"Chill thyself, Iida," Aizawa said as he pointed to the class rep of 1-A, "It should not be of any concern to anyone." Straightening himself up a bit, the underground hero continued, "Anyway, there are still some issues of business that the other staff members and I have to address in regards to all of the changes that had to be made in the wake of the monster attack, so for the rest of the day, your assignment is to help your new classmates here. Help them get used to being in the hero course, show them around campus mainly for the benefit of the girls that weren't already U.A. students, help them move into Heights Alliance, and whatever other issues that you brats feel have to be addressed and whatnot."

"I'm…guessing that the guys over in 1-B are going to be given a similar assignment by Sekijiro-sensei to help the five new students that they will be getting?" Yaoyorozu asked as she raised a hand, getting a confirming nod from Aizawa. The 1-A students then basically got the rest of the day off, even though they had to use a fair portion of it to help the five newest members of their class get used to how things are done.

But that still seemed like a lot of fun to a lot of the 1-A students, so no harm no foul.

* * *

The twenty-five students of 1-A were walking as a group through one of the hallways of U.A. as the first twenty gave their new fellows something of a tour. "Shinso and Hatsume already know a lot of this, so this is for Habuko, Sakaki and Eunice," Mina said as she gently clapped her hands together, "We'll be going on something of a general tour around the grounds here at U.A. We've got a lot to go over, so if there are any questions, let's hear them now."

"Can we stop off at some vending machines to grab some snacks," Sakaki asked as she raised a hand, "Or if you guys have something here at U.A. like the student store that they had over at Vulcan? Because I'm getting a bit peckish."

With a bit of a chuckle, Shinso said, "No need to worry." Taking off his backpack and unzipping it, the brainwasher revealed a number of snacks inside; it was mostly individually wrapped snack cakes, but there were some small snack-sized bags of chips, a few bags of candy, and even a couple of bottles of soda. "Just so you know, this selection is based mostly off of my taste, so I may not have some of the specific favorites of a lot of people here," Shinso said to the group as a whole as he handed a bag of cheddar and sour cream potato chips to Sakaki, "I had a feeling that there would be some manner of big tour ahead of time, so I brought these in case anyone wanted a snack or soda and we can't stop the tour to eat or whatever."

"…Wow, he's good," Bakugo remarked to Sero, Kaminari and Kirishima as they watched Shinso hand some snacks out, such as Izuki getting a bag of sour watermelon slices, and Uraraka getting a can of Moonberry Cola.

After Shinso zipped his backpack back up, Mina said, "Well then, since we seem to have food and drink covered, we can shoot along with the tour now." Gesturing for everyone to follow her, the pink-skinned girl said, "Follow me!"

* * *

Standing outside of the nurse's office, Mina said, "Alright new kids, this here is the nurse's office. If you get hurt or whatever, then come on down here and Recovery Girl will take a look at you to see what needs to be fixed."

Holding up his right index finger, Bakugo said to the new students with a self-amused smirk on his face, "Fun fact: Three out of every four times Recovery Girl has to see to taking care of a student here, it's Deku."

"Fun fact," Izuku remarked, his tone sounding somewhat defeated, "Recovery Girl now has a hospital bed set aside for me on permanent reserve."

…

"This, everyone," Mina said as the group stopped outside of some doors over which the sign for Lunch Rush Cafeteria was located, "Is the cafeteria. We come here for breakfast and lunch, and oftentimes dinner as well. Lunch Rush-sensei cooks everything, and it's all phenomenal food. Take my word for it when I say that you wouldn't have had better food before."

"Tamaki-sempai and I have actually studied a bit under Lunch Rush-sensei to learn some new recipes," Sato said to the new 1-A students, drawing impressed looks out of them, especially the three that weren't already U.A. students.

Clapping her hands together, Sakaki said as she looked up at the sign over the doors leading into the cafeteria, "I was planning to ask where the cafeteria was located at some point. Glad it was made into part of the tour."

…

Stopping the group of twenty-five outside of a very sturdy-looking metal door with a sign that said 'Development Studio' hanging along the upper part of the one side of the doorframe, Mina said to the new 1-A students, "This right here-"

"Is essentially my home away from home," Hatsume said, cutting the pink-skinned girl off midsentence, "Yes, I know the Development Studio very well, Mina."

Giving the eccentric pink-haired inventor a mildly amused look, Mina said, "Yes, yes, we all know how seven out of ten accidents and explosions caused here are all your doing, Mei. There is no need to brag about it."

Mei, with a mildly surprised look on her face, replied, "Only seven out of ten?" Crossing her arms over her chest, Mei remarked, "Humph. Sounds like I've been issued a challenge."

"Mei, please no," Izuku remarked, the very worried look on his face suggesting that he had an idea what the inventor had in mind.

* * *

"This is the P.E. grounds," Mina said to the group as she lead everyone outside and over to the area where they all did the softball throw with their quirks at the beginning of their careers as U.A. students, "Chances are that Aizawa-sensei will want to have you guys do the same stuff we all had to do on the first day, as we will want to-"

"Oi, 1-A, what are you charlatans doing here?" a familiar annoying male voice called out, prompting everyone in 1-A to turn around and see Monoma of class 1-B walking up to them. The hysteric holler monkey would have continued, but he was cut off with a karate chop to the back of his head, courtesy of an oversized hand that shrank back down to normal size soon after as Istuka proceeded to collect the knocked-out Monoma.

Looking over at 1-A, the 1-B class rep said, "Sorry about that, you guys, but I'm still trying to get Monoma to behave himself and help with getting our respective classes to get along. This is even more important now that we have bigger class sizes, and with all that had happened a few days previous during the monster attack."

Shrugging indifferently, Bakugo remarked, "Whatever, Kendo. It's like there's not enough room our here on the P.E. grounds for both of our classes to show our new OH WHAT THE FUCK IS HE DOING HERE?!" The others in 1-A were curious as to why Bakugo deviated midsentence and shouted angrily as the top of his lungs. The others in 1-A looked over and, just as they were showing the five new classmates in their class around, the students of 1-B was showing their five new classmates. And what a selection of new students it was. Unlike with class 1-A getting one boy and four girls, class 1-B got five boys, all of which were all already currently in the male U.A. student uniform.

The first new boy had two pastel azure blue jutting sections going up from his head before ending in a slight curve back, sort of resembling sections on a humanoid bug, and the first new boy had somewhat stark white skin aside from yellow sections covering his chin, jawline and both ears, sort of resembling a kind of face-framing mask. His biceps, elbows and forearms were covered in an exoskeleton-like material in the same color as the jutting sections that were coming out from his head.

The second new boy in 1-B had a clever and cunning look to him, and he had somewhat large but notably slender, pointed and furry foxlike ears as opposed to regular human ears, and he had a total of nine bushy foxlike tails, as opposed to having a single tail such as what Ojiro and Sakaki both got. This second new boy in 1-B also had a foxlike nose as opposed to a regular human nose, but other than all of that he looked fully human. It was clear that the second new boy in 1-B had a mutation quirk that gave him foxlike features, but why he had nine tails as opposed to one struck many as odd.

The third new boy was notably tall; he had to be a minimum of six feet. He was fair-skinned, had long and wild dark brown hair, long pointed ears that were reminiscent of a primate, a single long primate-like tail, and when he opened his mouth two sturdy-looking fangs could be seen; these fangs were clearly primate like in nature. The third new boy also had a lean yet fairly muscular body, which many would say was idea for being an athlete or a fighter. Some of the 1-A boys felt that he would be a good opponent to face, and Kirishima was even itching to have a go at him; same for Ojiro surprisingly enough, as he felt that the third new boy in 1-B had to be a serious martial artist.

The fourth new boy was the most normal looking of the lot so far; he had fair skin, scruffy chin-length black hair, and a single scar running over his right eye. Izuku could not help but wonder what kind of quirk the fourth new boy in 1-B had, but all wonder fled the green-eyed boy when he saw why Bakugo had exclaimed so angrily just now.

The fifth new student in class 1-B was Akuma Giratina.

Itsuka, with some uncertainty in her tone and expression, gestured to the first, second, third, fourth and fifth new students in 1-B in that order as she introduced them to 1-A. "Well, these guys here are the new members of 1-B," the class rep began, "Their names are Artemis Norio, Kurama Kitsune, Goukazaru Tsukasa, Omono Tanaka, and of course you all already know who Akuma here is."

"Damn fucking straight we know who the fuck he is!" Bakugo snapped, "What the fuck is he doing here at U.A.?! Do the teachers not remember the shit he pulled back when he took part in that tournament from a while ago?"

Giving Bakugo a neutral glare, Akuma said in an indifferent tone, "It's great to see you again too, Explosion Boy."

"Umm, excuse me," Sakaki said nervously, getting Bakugo to turn to face her, "But there's actually a lot more behind what all Akuma did while he and I were still students over at Vulcan. He's not as bad as you and some of the others might think." Most everyone else in the 1-A group looked at Sakaki with skeptical looks.

Sighing in a resigned tone, Itsuka said, "Yamamaya has a point, 1-A." When everyone in 1-A turned to face her, the class rep of 1-B explained, "Sekijiro-sensei told us the story. Basically, a lot of what Akuma did prior to leaving Vulcan was because the principal over there had put him up to it because she wanted him to show off as much of his power as possible. He was forbidden from ringing opponents out during the tournament against U.A., and again in a later tournament against Ketsubutsu."

A lot of the 1-A students were surprised to hear Itsuka's story, but a lot of the students in 1-B backed it up. "Yeah, Akuma would have aimed for ringing people out as quickly and efficiently as possible otherwise," Reiko said, "Like that one time he had Pony up by her neck, he actually wanted to set her down outside of the ring while still standing in the ring himself."

"Scary guy even apologized for what he did to me," Pony supplied, "As well as apologize to everyone in class that was upset with him over what he did to me and Ibara."

Crossing his arms over her chest, Ibara added with a bemused look on her face, "He's refusing to apologize to me personally, however, unlike with how he apologized to Pony personally." Looking over at 1-A, the devout Christian said, "In fact, he even went out of his way to clarify that none of the apology he gave to the class over how they felt about him treating me during the tournament was at all directed at me."

Bakugo's expression remained unchanged, but his tone seemed to lighten at least a little. "…My guess is that you being a devout Christian still ticks him off, because he's under the impression that you're going to try to save him or whatever."

"I am, as it's my pious duty to save anyone and everyone that I can," Ibara replied. Shooting Akuma a quick glance, Ibara continued when she turned her attention back to 1-A, "Even if some of them aren't all that receptive to me trying to save them."

"Tell you what, Nun Girl," Akuma snarked, "If you try to save me, then I'll try to corrupt you in return." Turning to look directly at the pious vine-haired girl, Akuma gave a self-amused smirk as he said, "First one to succeed wins."

Itsuka gave a somewhat amused smile as she said, "At least there's enough room for everyone to joke around with each other in."

END, CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Author's notes;

So yeah, big changes to a lot of things, especially the roster of students in 1-A and 1-B. What I'm sure is particularly stand out is that both classes got a prior Vulcan High student, with 1-B getting the satanic hero-in-training that, even with the explanation given, still has a lot of people in both classes apprehensive at best. Even so, I got the ball rolling with this part of the arc. The next chapter will see the new students in both classes help out their respective classes with stuff around the place, mostly to characterize the newer characters and show off some of what they can all do.

But the presence of the ten (total) new hero course students between 1-A and 1-B will play a notable role in the next couple of chapters of this arc. Bakugo, who is still rather pissed off at Akuma for what he did to Pony during the first arc, will have to put those feelings aside when there is some trouble brewing during the last few chapters of the arc, which will feature some sort of festival covering all of U.A., a festival where students from other high schools (never said that they would be _hero_ high schools) will visit U.A. grounds.

A few side notes before I go. First, to those of you who are upset that Mineta wasn't axed, I'm sorry that I had made you upset. Originally, I was actually fully intending to axe Mineta, but after thinking about how I had the next few arcs structured, I realized that I actually kind of have to keep Mineta around, mostly to help keep the numbers up. Don't worry, I won't be needing him around _forever_; I'll drop some hints when the time is approaching. Second, another mini-arc is set to start up soon, and part of said mini-arc heavily references 'We must protect the Runestone!', one of my smaller BNHA stories that crosses with Loud House. Although not explicitly required, brushing up on 'Runestone' will help fill in some gaps that won't be explained in this story itself, although said gaps mostly revolve around some of the villains that are going to be showing up. The third and final note is that I'm considering changing this story's rating (I did say the rating was subject to change) down to 'T', but I'm not sure if some of the material in the story so far could fly as T-rated. What do you guys think?


	22. Chapter 22

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter twenty-two: Carney Chaos, part one

Artemis Norio, one of the new students of U.A. high school's class 1-B, was reading a newspaper as he was sitting down, contently humming to himself. Suddenly, and without warning, the door leading to where Artemis was sitting down was thrown open, startling the exoskeletoned boy of 1-B as Monoma, the blonde hysteric holler monkey of class 1-B and something of a sempai to Artemis (it wasn't Artemis's idea, mind you) came barging in.

"Damn it, man!" Artemis snapped in an annoyed tone as he lowered his newspaper so that it covered his lap; zooming out a bit, one would be able to see that Artemis was sitting on the toilet, with his pants and underwear down around his ankles. Luckily, the newspaper that Artemis was reading was covering anything that shouldn't be seen. "Why did you just barge in without knocking," Artemis snapped at Monoma, "And at the worst possible time?!"

"As a new member of 1-B, you need to know that it is the solemn duty of our class to show up those oafish glory hounds in 1-A whenever and wherever the opportunity arises," Monoma said to the exoskeletoned boy, who just continued to look on with a dry, unamused look on his face, "And such an opportunity has indeed arisen for us! We of 1-B shall soon put 1-A in their place, once and for all!"

Arching a wry eyebrow at Monoma, Artemis said in a dry manner, "You know, you could have waited to tell me this later while I wasn't in the middle of bleeding the lizard. Seriously, I was already pissing, so there was no need for you to scare the piss out of me by barging in while I was on the crapper." Gripping the sides of his newspaper, Artemis said, "Now could you please leave and allow me to take a piss in peace? I'll meet up with you and the rest of the class later." Looking down at his newspaper, Artemis remarked, "The funnies aren't going to read themselves."

Shrugging indifferently, Monoma complied and left, thankfully remembering to close the door to the bathroom stall that Artemis was using.

* * *

Later that day, some of the students in 1-A were gathered in the school library. The group consisted of Izuku, his friends Uraraka, Tenya and Todoroki, and two of 1-A's newest members, those being Shinso and Sakaki. 1-B was not the only class to get new students, as 1-A got five new members as well; Shinso was already a U.A. student that was going to get into the hero course anyway but got in early due to a drastically increased need for as many heroes on hand as possible, and Sakaki had transferred into U.A. from her old school Vulcan High, who have a less than stellar relationship with the top hero high school of Japan.

As the six students were going over a bunch of stuff related to something that their class had planned, a smartphone that was lying on the table next to Sakaki went off. The fat cat girl picked it up and answered the text she got. "…Oh, Tsuyu and Habuko got the colored poster boards that we need to make signs with, and they need some help getting everything to the classroom," Sakaki said. She got up and told everyone, "Sorry, but I've got to go help the girls. I'll catch up with you all later."

Everyone else at the table understood and said goodbye to Sakaki. To the surprise of Izuku, Uraraka, Tenya and Todoroki, Sakaki leaned close to Shinso, kissed him on the lips, and then turned to leave. After Sakaki had left, the others at the table all turned to their new classmate to ask what all of that was about. "Oh, that," Shinso began, "Yeah, we pretty much hit it off a few minutes or so after Sakaki first came up to me, back during that tournament between U.A. and her old school. We've actually been dating ever since that tournament ended." Crossing his arms over his chest, the brainwasher said, "I still want to know what she sees in me, though. I mean, I've never been one to get female attention, and most would assume that I would control a girl to get her to like me, which is wrong and before you ask no, I'll never do it."

With a shrug, Todoroki said, "What I would like to know is what Ms. Joke sees in Aizawa-sensei, given how often she flirts with him." Gesturing to Shinso, Todoroki said, "Maybe you and your father have a lot in common what with how girls have a tendency to inexplicably flirt with the both of you."

"…Aizawa-sensei isn't my father," Shinso corrected dryly.

"It's something that comes with Todoroki being Todoroki," Tenya explained to the brainwasher, "But we're getting side-tracked here." To the rest of the group at the table, the 1-A class rep said, "We need to come up with what we'll do as a group for the upcoming school festival. This is a much more important one than the last festival, as we were told by Aizawa-sensei that students from Azu-Daioh High will be allowed to visit and take part in the festivities. As for what activity that the class as a whole will do, we'll vote on it in class later."

Gesturing to the group to get their attention, Shinso said, "I was thinking that we can just hand out little grab bags of candy or whatever to the visiting students."

Nodding in agreement, Izuku said, "That sounds like a good idea, Shinso."

"Hey wait," Uraraka began, "Will parents be allowed to come onto the grounds as well?"

Todoroki let out a resigned sigh. "…Unfortunately, yes," the half-n-half boy confirmed, "I learned of that when Aizawa-sensei was talking the matter over with Sekijiro-sensei." Giving another resigned sigh, Todoroki added, "…Right while my father was talking to them. As such, he said that he intends to come."

"You should be happy that at least one parent of yours is coming," Uraraka said to her classmate, "Both of mine are going to be busy in that time-frame due to the fact that their construction company has gotten a lot more contracts as of late."

Turning to regard Uraraka, Izuku said with a happy look, "Oh yeah, you and your folks are doing a lot better now because we all did that commercial for your parents' construction company." With a nod, Izuku continued, "I'm glad that we were able to do as much as we did."

Uraraka, given how she was being talked to by Izuku and the fact that he was saying, in some way, that he was glad to be of help to her, right away began to light up red like a shiny holiday ornament. "Oh, umm, well, a lot of you guys helped with the commercial," the gravity girl said, clearly a bit embarrassed that the green-haired cinnamon roll was talking to her in such a nice and friendly manner.

"You know," Shinso remarked, "Having someone like Endeavor, who is the current number one pro hero, at the festival would be a great deterrent to keep criminals and villains away from students, both those of U.A. and those visiting from Azu-Daioh High to check out the festival that we're throwing on." Turning to regard Todoroki, Shinso said, "You shouldn't be so mad that your old man is coming."

Todoroki decided to let the matter go. Sure, the half-n-half boy still held a lot of resentment towards his father, and he doubt that he would ever truly let go of every last offence. But he had to admit that Endeavor was showing incredible signs of improving overall as a person; as much as he wanted to, Todoroki couldn't see his father as wholly horrible anymore. Mostly, yes, but not wholly overall.

After Todoroki decided to put what resentment he still held towards his father off to the side, the group proceeded to get into the swing of things when it came to discussing what the five of them and Sakaki (their group was made of six students total, and not every group of 1-A students had the same number of members) would do as a group. Some of them even wrote down some ideas of what to suggest when it came to voting on what 1-A can do as a whole for the festival.

* * *

Over in the 1-B classroom, Sekijiro was out as he had to handle a few other last-minute details, so the twenty-five members of the class were left to their own devices. Over near his desk, Akuma Giratina found a red spiral bound notebook on the floor. Curious, he picked it up and flipped it over to look at the front; it was a covered with stickers in the likeness of, surprisingly enough, Kirishima from class 1-A. What struck Akuma as odd was the sticker of Kirishima's head in the middle, surrounded by a ring of small pink heart-shaped stickers.

"…Isn't he the guy who defeated me in the match for third place back during the tournament?" Akuma said aloud to himself as he looked at the front cover of the notebook. As Akuma held that notebook, his classmates Yosetsu and Shihai came walking over. Noticing the boys, Akuma showed them the cover of the notebook he picked up and said, "What do you two make of this notebook I found on the floor near my desk? It certainly ain't mine, that's for sure."

Looking at the cover of the notebook, Yosetsu said after a few seconds of observation, "My guess is that someone ordered that sticker sheet set from the Kirishma merchandise section of the Fat Gum agency merchandise catalogue," Yosetsu explained, "Both Kirishma and Tamaki-sempai got lines of merchandise after their first tenure as interns under the pro hero Fat Gum. I was told that Fat Gum personally makes sure that Kirishima and Tamaki-sempai get any and all profits made from merchandise in their respective likenesses that his agency sells."

"Does that sticker sheet include a page of little pink heart stickers?" the Satanist of U.A. asked, arching a wry eyebrow.

Yosetsu crossed his arms over his chest as he gently shook his head. "…No, I'm pretty sure that it doesn't," Yosetsu replied. Shrugging indifferently, Akuma took the notebook he found to the front of the classroom and dropped it into the lost and found bin up there. After doing so, Akuma returned to his desk right before Itsuka came into the classroom. With the return of the 1-B class rep, all twenty-five students in the class were now in the room.

Clapping a few times to get everyone's attention, Itsuka said, "Everyone, I need you all to stay at your desks for the vote on what we as a class can do for the upcoming festival. It would get a bit chaotic if you all remained milling about the classroom while we're trying to organize the vote." Complying with their class rep, the other twenty-four students of 1-B all returned to their desks. Seeing everyone was seated, Itsuka nodded once and said, "Good." Picking up a piece of chalk to write on the board with, Itsuka began, "Now, who here has any ideas on what we can do?"

"A barbecue?" Pony said as she raised a hand.

"Oh, that actually sounds like a good idea," the class 1-B rep said as she wrote Pony's idea down on the board. A few more suggestions went up on the board, such as Reiko suggesting a fortune teller like attraction, Kinoko offering a café idea, and Tetsutetsu offering a sort of mini carnival attraction with games such as whack-a-mole and that 'hit the bell with the hammer' thing, which he was insistent on including as it was a test of strength.

After she finished writing down the first ten ideas or so that her classmates offered, Itsuka said, "Are there any more ideas?"

Raising a hand, Ibara said as she stood up, "I firmly believe that we should set up a prayer group for people to join and give thanks to God and to ask for his blessing."

"Wouldn't that set Akuma on fire if he was so much as ten feet away from it?" Kosei asked, a curious look on his face. The satanic hero-in-training had to admit that his classmate made a funny joke, and chuckled appropriately to it.

Getting up from his desk, Monoma said as he walked up to the front of the classroom where Itsuka was standing, "I have what should be the obvious choice for us to do for the festival!"

Face palming, Artemis muttered to himself, "Oh for fuck's sake, not this gremlin again…"

Setting up a laptop so that it would play a slideshow on the projector screen that was pulled down, Monoma said as he plugged a flash drive into the laptop, "I have prepared a slide show that will educate those who watch in on the evils of each individual member of class 1-A, as well as that conceited class as a whole!"

Itsuka rolled her eyes at Monoma, once again, trying to spread anti-class 1-A propaganda, something that she was in no mood for, especially since she doesn't want the five new students in the class to get the wrong idea of their schoolmates in Aizawa's homeroom. The first slide was a white slide with '1-A: HOW YOU CAN PROTECT YOURSELF FROM BEING FOOLED' in big bold black letters.

Gesturing to his classmates, Monoma began, "As most of us know, those glory hounds in 1-A act like they run the place. It is up to us, the good folks here in 1-B, to keep them from being a bad role model, especially to the new students here." Gesturing to where Akuma, Artemis, Kurama, Goukazaru and Omono all sat in the back of the classroom, Monoma said, "Boys, don't let any of those conceited buffoons in 1-A pull the wool over your eyes! All of them are all out to make U.A. look like a circus!"

"What, is making U.A. look like a circus supposed to be _your_ job?" Artemis asked, drawing some laughter from most of the other students in class.

Growling with mild annoyance, the hysteric holler monkey of 1-B said, "I am telling you all that 1-A is not to be trusted! That class is the devil incarnate!"

"No, the devil incarnate is sitting in class with us right over there," Ibara said to Monoma while pointing at Akuma.

"Okay, Nun Girl, I have to admit that was a good one," Akuma remarked with a mildly amused smirk on his face as he chuckled a bit.

As Ibara sat back down while muttering about how she wasn't actually making a joke, Monoma said once things settled down enough, "You guys, this is serious! We are all that stands in the way of those 1-A cretans trampling the good name of U.A. into the dirt! Surly none of you would let such an offence happen without fighting back!"

"You know, I personally don't see what's wrong with any of those guys in the other class," Kurama remarked as he crossed his arms over his chest while his nine tails swished about slowly as he gave Monoma a questioning look.

"Yeah, and some of us are actually good pals with the guys over in 1-A," Tetsutetsu said, "Like how me and Kirishima are pretty chill with each other, and our bud Juzo is in cahoots with both Midoriya and Shinso, the latter having been thrown into the class recently." The softening quirk boy nodded in agreement with what Tetsutetsu was saying.

Sighing in a mildly resigned tone, Monoma said, "You guys really need to be corrected on the horror that is class 1-A, it seems. I suppose that makes it as good of a time as any to begin the slideshow to educate people better!"

The rest of 1-B groaned a bit as their hysteric classmate was going to start the slideshow anyway. As some of the students rolled their eyes at their classmate's hate-filled anti-class 1-A triad, Pony and Reiko were both surprised when Kinoko got their attention. "Psst, hey girls," the mushroom girl said in a hushed whisper so as to not get snapped at by Monoma, "Have either of you seen my red spiral bound notebook?"

* * *

Over in the classroom for class 1-A, Tenya stood at the front of the classroom leading the class discussion, as Aizawa was out at the moment handling some other business. "Now then, we ought to get down to nominating and voting for ideas on what we as a whole class can do for the upcoming festival where students from Azu-Daioh High will be visiting U.A. to take part in the festivities," the class 1-A rep said.

"How about romantic horse-drawn carriage rides in the snow?" Todoroki suggested as he raised a hand. Noticing a few confused looks that he was getting Todoroki explained, "It would be the prefect way for couples to have a great time together. And don't worry about the snow; I can very easily make as much as needed."

Gesturing to Todoroki, Izuku asked, "Where will we get the carriage, though? And the horses?"

Standing up, Yaoyorozu said, "My family owns a few horses, and we also have a carriage that should suit the idea well enough." Turning to look at Todoroki, the rich girl said with a very confused look on her face, "But even I would like to know why you, of all people, would suggest something like romantic horse-drawn carriage rides in the snow."

With the straightest face he had ever given anyone, the dual natured-quirk boy said, "I will not apologize for wanting to do what I can to secure Reiko's affections. And I'm certain that I'm not the only guy here who would like to get closer to a girl that he has feelings for."

Bakugo opened his mouth as he raised his right index finger, looking like he was going to object. But he stopped before he got even one word out, nodded his head a bit and said, "Half-n-half has a point. I'm still trying to get Pony to like me, and I bet she'd like going on a ride like that."

"You and Todoroki are lucky to have girls that you're both working hard to win over, Baku-bro," Kirishima remarked. With an embarrassed chuckle, the red-haired hardening quirk boy said, "I don't really see myself as the kind of guy that any girl would want to give going out with a try, so I don't think my romance life will be all that successful."

After a bit more talking about the idea, class 1-A as a whole ended up agreeing that the 'romantic horse-drawn carriage rides in the snow' idea was the best one of the lot; a few other ideas were suggested in the process, but they were all shot down. Especially the one Mineta came up with where the girls of 1-A would do a bikini modeling contest, which was shot down with righteous fury, much to Mineta's surprise.

Turning to face where Kaminari sat, Mineta said, "Kaminari, man, you've got to back me up on this one. This is girls in bikinis that we're talking about, here!"

The electric quirk user, with a dry and unamused look on his face, looked at Mineta as he crossed his arms over his chest. "…I'm still upset with you, man," Kaminari remarked. The infamous pervert slumped in defeat, and after the last two or so ideas were suggested, class 1-A as a whole ended up voting for Todoroki's romantic horse-drawn carriage rides in the snow idea, with all of the girls in the class finding the idea to be particularly appealing.

* * *

The two would-be killers were surprised by their luck; they feared that, when caught while on their job over in that Royal Woods place over in Michigan in the United States, they would be very royally screwed over, especially after they had been extradited back to Japan. However, once the plane carrying them landed in a runway at a less notable Japanese airport (the people running the case wanted to maintain a low profile for numerous reasons), the plane was surprised besieged by villains.

"We're being attacked!" one of the pilots exclaimed into a radio to communicate with someone for help, "We're being-ACK!" The pilot never got to finish what he was saying when he and his co-pilot were both killed when villains came up behind them and slit their throats. As the gashes in the throats of the two pilots sprayed a warm, life-giving crimson, Toga and Spinner, the two villains that killed the pilots, allowed the dead bodies to fall over onto the control panel for the plane in the cockpit.

Looking at the spray of blood on the control panel, Toga could not help but squeal with sadistic, deranged delight. "Ooh, it looks so pretty," the psychotic high school girl said, blushing as she looked at the blood coating the control panel in the cockpit.

Gently shaking his head at his fellow villain's antics, Spinner simply wiped his hinting knife he used to kill the pilot that he killed on said pilot's right sleeve. "You need to stay on point, Toga," the lizard man villain scolded, "Remember, we're currently on a mission to recover the two mercenaries hired by the benefactor that's secretly funneling funds to our cause." Sheathing his hunting knife, Spinner continued, "Given how low our current funds are, we cannot afford to dilly-dally around while we're on the-"

"Found them," a male voice called out to Spinner and Toga, making them both turn to see their fellow villain Dabi entering the cockpit, followed by the two mercenaries that were captured back in Royal Woods and extradited back to Japan. Gesturing to the two mercenaries, Dabi said, "Now that we got them, I suggest that the lot of us make ourselves like hockey equipment and get the puck out of here."

"Thanks for the save," the first mercenary said as he and the second mercenary followed the trio of villains out of the landed plane, off of the runway and far away from that airport, "I swear, we had no idea that a simple job to knock off some brown-haired girl on a field trip with her class over in Royal Woods would have been such a nightmare."

Nodding in understanding, Dabi remarked, "I can't blame you two for failing a job over in that chaotic realm of pandemonium. I mean, when Toga, Spinner, Giran and I were over in Royal Woods working with a local rich guy that ended up betraying us in the end, Toga, Spinner and I ended up having to go up against frigg'in shinobi from one of the elemental nations. The lot of us were lucky to get out of that mess as unscaved as we did." Gently shaking his head, the blue flame villain continued, "I'd…rather not go back to Royal Woods anytime soon."

"Luckily for us, our latest job only had us rescue the two of you from transport by the people that extradited you," Spinner said, "We also have to get you back to meet with the benefactor that's helping us with funding, because your target's back here in Japan, whoever he or she is."

"It's a she," the second mercenary confirmed with a nod, "A female student from U.A. High School named Ochaco Uraraka."

Since the group was still currently running, the guys were all surprised when Toga suddenly skidded to a stop. Looking at the two mercenaries, the psychotic school girl said, "You guys are trying to kill Gravity Girl?"

Gesturing to Toga, the second mercenary explained, "The boss wants her dead to send a message to her folks. You see, the Urarakas have a construction company that recently got out a commercial that had an ensemble cast of pro heroes take part in it. Due to that, a whole lot of people have been using the Uraraka's company rather than any of the construction companies under the boss's thumb. As a result, the boss's monopoly on the business was disrupted."

Nodding in agreement, the first mercenary went on, "The boss wants to send the Urarakas a message, to teach them better than to have disrupted one of his monopolies. Thus, he hired me and my partner here to track down and kill their brat."

"So you guys are aiming to kill a high school girl…" Spinner said as he crossed his arms over his chest, giving both of the mercenaries a rather dry, mildly unamused look, "…Because your boss wants to send the parents of said girl a message because he didn't like how their construction company disrupted his monopoly on the industry." Gently shaking his head, the lizard man villain remarked, "Yeah, that doesn't sound like a killing that I would be interested in doing at all, regardless of the offered pay. It doesn't sound like it aligns with the ideology of Stain at all."

"…Yeah, I'm going to have to go with Spinner on this one," Dabi said, "I have no problem with killing pro heroes, as well as anyone who gets in my way bad enough, but I have to draw the line at a job like what the benefactor is having the two of you do."

Shrugging, the first mercenary said, "Fair enough." Turning to look at Toga, the first mercenary asked, "What about you?"

Toga, with a troubled, unsure look on her face, gently shook her head. "…Sure, she's one of the girls I have to compete with in order to get my Izu-kun to like me," Toga said, "But she's still a friend of mine. I'm not sure if I can bring myself to kill her just because her parents pissed off some rich guy."

"You're a villain," the second mercenary said, his tone sounding dry, "And yet you're friends with a hero-in-training."

Jerking a thumb at the psychotic school girl, Spinner explained to the mercenaries, "Toga here is a bit coo-coo in the coconut, if you catch my drift." Dabi, with his arms crossed over his chest, simply nodded in agreement with Spinner.

Once he was done nodding in agreement with his lizard man friend, Dabi stepped forward a step towards the mercenaries. "…Look, although you guys aren't members of the Front," the blue flame villain began, "The whole lot of us here still draw income from the same benefactor. As such, it would be best if we helped one another out when need be."

The two mercenaries both arched eyebrows at Dabi, with the second one saying, "I thought that you three wouldn't help us kill the Uraraka girl."

Gently shaking his head, Dabi said, "That's not what I meant." Gesturing to the mercenaries, Dabi explained, "The hero high school that the Uraraka girl goes to, U.A., is going to have some sort of school festival coming up, and students from one of the regular public high schools, that Azu-Daioh High place, will be coming onto U.A. grounds to take part in the festivities. Toga, Spinner and I were going to go there ourselves undercover to do a bit of recon." Letting out a resigned sigh, Dabi said, "The most I'd be willing to do to help you guys is leave the door open so you can get in. After that, you're on your own when it comes to killing the Uraraka girl, and if you fail to get her then it's not my fault."

The two mercenaries turned to face each other, then after looking at one another in silence for a few seconds, turned back to face Dabi. "…Yeah, that sounds fair," the first mercenary replied, "We were going to bring a few more of the boys working under the boss's employ to help with tracking down and killing the Uraraka girl, so you leaving the door open for us like you say will be all the help we'd probably ask for."

"Just leave me, Toga and Spinner out of it, because we have our own job to take care of during that festival at U.A.," Dabi said, "Oh, and one more thing." Leaning slightly closer to the two mercenaries, the blue flame villain said, "There is this one boy who is a student over at U.A. by the name of Shoto Todoroki. He has a burn mark over part of his face, and his hair is red on one side and white on the other."

Leaning just a smidge closer to the mercenaries, Dabi growled, "Do **NOT** do anything to Todoroki. He's a person of interest to me." The pair of mercenaries got the message that Dabi was telling them loud and clear; they understood that if they were to harm the boy that Dabi had just described to them, then their lives might be forfeit as far as the blue flame villain cared.

Just a little bit more nervous than he was previously, the first mercenary said, "Don't worry. The lads and I just have to get in, kill the Uraraka girl, take a picture to prove to the boss that we did it and then get the hell out of dodge. Our boss will also hear about it through the news when something like that happens at a high school festival." Dabi straightened himself out a bit as he gave off a smirk.

"…Fine by me," Dabi replied.

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Author's notes;

Well this mini arc has certain gotten off to an interesting start. A few things were being done by the students of U.A. in preparation for the school festival where they will be visited by students from Azu-Daioh High, which is the high school that the monster students from Yokai Academy transferred to when they had to vacate the grounds of their school. Things are shaping up to be a wonderful experience for the teenagers, U.A. and Azu-Daioh alike.

…Even so, there are villainous forces that are plotting in the background to do a number of vile deeds, with one such group being the would-be killers from class 1-A's field trip back in the previous arc. And they are still aiming to carry out the job their 'boss' gave them to track down and kill Uraraka. To make matters worse, the two mercenaries are going to be bringing 'some of the lads' with them this time, so as to have a higher chance of success.

However, not only did a total of ten new students get placed into 1-A and 1-B (with each class getting five), but a lot of the students that are visiting from Azu-Daioh High will include a lot of the monster students from Yokai Academy. Will the new hero course students at U.A. and the visiting monster students from Azu-Daioh High be enough to help turn things in Uraraka's favor over the next few chapters? The only way to know for sure is to stay tuned.

As a side note, Dabi, Spinner and Toga really _did_ go to Royal Woods for a job; the events in question are covered in 'We must protect the Runestone!', one of my BNHA/Loud House cross stories. Both 'Runestone' and the other BNHA/Loud House cross story, 'The quirks that come with living in Royal Woods', gives context to a LOT of the events that either have taken place already or are going to be taking place in this story. Think of those two as supplementary material to the BNHA story setting that I'm trying to work on here. There will be other supplementary material coming out in the times to come, so there's that to look forward to.


	23. Chapter 23

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter twenty-three: Carney Chaos, part two

The setup for the U.A. school festival was going pretty well. Nezu was at first a bit surprised to see that one section of the school grounds was inexplicably covered in snow, and also that there was a horse-drawn carriage and two Clydesdales at said snow-covered area, but he relaxed when Aizawa explained to him that 1-A's planned attraction that they as a class would do was romantic horse-drawn carriage rides in the snow, with Todoroki using the ice half of his quirk to make the snow, and Yaoyorozu providing the carriage and the two Clydesdales.

Surprised to see two large draft horses rather than smaller breeds more commonly associated with the idea of horse-drawn carriages, Aizawa pointed to the Clydesdales as he asked while looking at Yaoyorozu, "How in the name of Gilgamesh did your family get ahold of frigg'in Clydesdales? Those aren't exactly a common horse to see in Japan, you know."

Yaoyorozu, giving her homeroom teacher a blank, dry look, replied, "My family is very wealthy. Remember, Aizawa-sensei? Also, Gilgamesh?"

"What's it to you that I worship an ancient Sumerian demigod?" the underground hero retorted dryly before turning around to walk to the front gate to help some other U.A. staff with letting people in after checking them. A fairly large crowd of guests and visitors were pouring into the front area of U.A. grounds, many of which were clearly teenagers that were studnets over at Azu-Daioh High.

Over at the big thing that 1-A was doing as a class for the festival, Izuku, Uraraka, Tenya and Shinso were putting out coats typically associated with the people who drive horse-drawn carriages around in winter time, something that Todoroki said was a requirement in order to better sell the image that they had to project. As the friends were all gearing up, they all heard a voice call out to them, "Oi, guys!"

Izuku and the others all turned to see a group of eight male Azu-Daioh High studnets walk up to them. All of them were casually dressed, too. The one boy in the front of the group, with a mane of jet black hair held back by a red bandana and he also wore a simple necklace with a wolf's head charm on it, was waiving at Izuku and the others, showing that it was him who was calling out to them. The hero course studnets also saw a camera on a strap around the boy's neck.

Reaching the U.A. studnets with his friends, the camera boy said, "Sup, U.A. student guys." Gesturing to himself, the camera boy said, "The name's Ginei Morioka." Gesturing to each of the other guys in his group, Ginei continued, "These bad boys here are my pals Tsukune, Haiji, Fangfang, Draco, Ryota, Satoshi and Gaku."

"We're members of our school's newspaper club," the boy identified as Tsukune explained, "And we were hoping to do an interview with some of the studnets running attractions here in order to have something related to the festival your school is doing right now to put in the next issue of the paper when we get it out."

"We're…going to have to ask Aizawa-sensei for permission to do that interview," Tenya informed the studnets from Azu-Daioh High, "And he'll probably insist on being on-hand to make sure we don't say anything that U.A. wouldn't want to go into the school newspaper of another high school. Security and all that good jazz."

The boy identified as Draco nodded as he said, "Fair enough." Looking at Tenya and the others, Draco asked, "I don't suppose that there's some place here at your school's festival that sells food or drink, is there?" Crossing his arms over his chest, Draco continued, "I'd prefer stuff like sweet baked goods, sodas and similarly sweet drinks."

Jerking a thumb at Draco, the boy identified as Fangfang explained to the U.A. studnets, "Draco here has something of a sweet tooth, although he didn't hear of a whole lot of sweets until very recently, since his people had come out of hiding not all that long ago."

"Oh yeah, you guys are from Azu-Daioh High, so you got the monster studnets that had to transfer from Yokai Academy," Uraraka remarked, "Yeah, I heard about that." To the boys from Azu-Daioh High, the gravity girl continued, "If you don't mind me asking this, what kinds of monsters are you guys? None of you are like those warmonger monsters from the attack a short while ago, are you?"

"Oh no, none of us are warmonger-types," Ginei replied with an understanding and even mildly amused laugh. Gesturing to Satoshi, Ryota and Gaku, Ginei continued, "In fact, Satoshi, Ryota and Gaku here are actually humans, same as the lot of you." Ginei then said as he pointed to himself, Tsukune, Haiji, Fangfang and Draco in that order, "I can go ahead and tell you guys that I'm a werewolf, but I'll leave it to the rest of the boys here to tell you what they are if they feel like they want to share that."

Izuku and his friends all nodded in understanding to what Ginei had told them. Shinso looked like he was going to ask the Azu-Daioh High boys something, but he was cut off when Todoroki, wearing a coat similar to what his friends were wearing, came walking up to the group. He also had on a scarf, a winter cap and a pair of gloves.

Giving the boys talking to his friends a curious look, Todoroki asked, "Is there anything that we can help you with?"

"Oh, Todoroki," Izuku said, "These are boys from the newspaper club over at Azu-Daioh High. They just wanted to interview us about what we're doing for the festival so they have something to put in the next issue of their paper."

Pointing to the carriage to which the Clydesdales were already hooked up to, the boy identified as Haiji said, "Yeah, I want to know what all this is doing here."

To the Azu-Daioh High boys, Todoroki explained, "Our class is doing romantic horse-drawn carriage rides in the snow."

"Hoo boy, I bet that the other girls will be jealous of Mizore since she's with Tsukune and will probably want to try the carriage ride thing of yours!" Ginei laughed.

"Excuse me?" Todoroki asked, looking mildly confused.

Gesturing to Tsukune, Ginei explained, "My bud Tsukune here is dating a girl in the newspaper club named Mizore. You see, _every_ girl in the newspaper club was fighting for Tsukune's love, and in the end he ended up picking Mizore." Crossing his arms over his chest, the werewolf said with an amused smirk on his face, "That being said, since Tsukune and Mizore are an item, there is a good chance that they'll try the carriage ride attraction of yours at some point while we're all here for the festival."

Chuckling a bit in embarrassment, Tsukune said while scratching the back of his head, "Heh, yeah. I bet that Mizore will want to drag me over here if she hears about it."

"Well, we're still getting everything ready, but we should be good to go in the next thirty minutes," Uraraka said, "Can you guys try checking back with us then? Until then, please feel free to check out some of the stuff that class 1-B is doing, both as a class and some smaller things that individual groups from 1-B are doing."

"1-A is also doing a few smaller things as individual groups," Tenya supplied, "For instance, our classmate Rikido Sato is selling a number of baked goods that he has-"

"I wish to check that out," Draco said, cutting off the class 1-A rep.

The Azu-Daioh boys got directions from Tenya to go find where Sato was selling his baked goods before taking off, leaving the 1-A students at the carriage attraction be. Turning to face his classmates, Todoroki said, "Well, it's good to see that our class is going to have some success here at the festival with entertaining guests."

* * *

A short while later, Izuku and his friends had just about gotten the main attraction that 1-A was doing as a class finished with setup and ready to go. As Todoroki was setting something up at the ticket booth for the carriage rides, he and the rest of the group heard Tsuyu call out to them. As such, they all turned around to see their froggy classmate walk over to them, accompanied by a young girl and a grown man.

The young girl had dark green hair worn in low pigtails, and she wore a seafoam green long-sleeved dress that reached halfway down her shins plus a pair of brown shoes with pink frills along the holes that she slips her feet into. As for the man, he looked very much like a humanoid toad, but had a mop of shaggy black hair on top of his head, and he wore a standard-looking business suit composed of a white long-sleeved work shirt that was buttoned up, a pair of black pants held up with a brown leather belt, black shoes and around his neck he wore a blue tie that had light blue dots all over it.

"Guys," Tsuyu said to her classmates while gesturing to the young girl and grown man, "These are my younger sister Satsuki and my father Ganma. They wanted to see some of what we were doing for the festival, and when I told them about the carriage ride activity that was the main thing we were doing, Satsuki insisted on coming over to check it out."

"I hope we aren't being too much of a bother, kids," Ganma said as he gave a single nod to his oldest child's classmates.

"I want to see the horses!" Satsuki cheered excitedly, drawing some mild chuckling from both her older sister and her father.

Gesturing over to the carriage, Todoroki said, "We've just about got the carriage ride attraction set up and ready to go. Initially, we were only setting it up for couples to ride together to enjoy a romantic time with one another, but it's just as good for the three of you to do the carriage ride as a family." Arching an eyebrow, the dual natured-quirk user said, "Umm, will you guys be okay with the fact that I used my quirk to make a bunch of snow for the attraction?"

Shrugging, Ganma said, "Yeah, Tsuyu warned us about how it would be a bit cold, and we might get a bit sleepy at some point since we could start going into hibernation due to the nature of our respective quirks, but I don't see how it will cause us any actual harm."

Clapping her hands together, Uraraka said, "Well alright then. Now, I assume that it will be the three of you?"

Tsuyu nodded a few times in the affirmative before saying, "I guess it will be, although I do have to ask since you mentioned that it will just be me, my sister and my dad." Turning to face her family, Tsuyu asked, "Dad, where's Mom and Samidare?"

"Oh, your mother had to take your brother to another appointment," Ganma explained to his oldest child, "They won't be able to come to the festival." Crossing his arms over his chest, Ganma continued, "Although that might be for the best. I mean, given how big that your school's festival is looking to be, as well as what all is going to go on, it might be rather overwhelming for your brother."

"A fair point kero," Tsuyu replied, giving a single nod in agreement.

"Well either way," Shinso said, "We're glad to have you and Tsuyu's little sister here. You will have a great time here at the festival." Ganma and Satsuki both nodded in thanks before they and Tsuyu were led to the carriage by Todoroki, who then got into the driver's seat for the carriage so that he could take the Asuis around for a ride.

"…This is shaping up to be an excellent festival," Izuku remarked, "I can feel it."

* * *

Later, over at some of the smaller attractions that class 1-B was doing for the festival, Bakugo, along with Sero, Kaminari, Kirishima and Mina, were helping Itsuka, Reiko, Pony and Kinoko with getting something set up. It should be noted that the only reason why the explosive teen and his 'squad' were helping the 1-B girls was because when Itsuka and Pony came up to Bakugo, it was Pony who said that they as well as Reiko and Kinoko needed help.

Since it was his dream girl that had asked him for help, Bakugo not only readily agreed to help, but he also turned around, shouted "BAKU-SQUAD! ASSEMBLE!" and got his squad to appear in less than ten seconds before all of them had gathered. The 1-B girls were impressed that they had gotten as many extra pairs of hands to help them set up a few stands, and one of the first things that Itsuka did was direct Kirishima to go assist over at the snack and soda stand that Kinoko was in charge of.

As the explosive teen stood by with Itsuka and watched Sero, Kaminari and Mina help Reiko and Pony set something up, he and Itsuka heard the voice of Akuma speak up as he approached from behind. "Hey, Itsuka," the Satanist of U.A. said to his class's rep, "The blonde guy with a hate-boner for class 1-A just got his lights punch out by Sakaki because she saw the part of his quote unquote 'slide show' that derided her for her weight."

Sighing in a resigned tone, Itsuka muttered to herself, "Damn it, Monoma." Speaking to Akuma directly, Itsuka said, "Thanks for letting me know, Akuma."

"Hey, Devil prick," Bakugo snarled, giving Akuma a very serious glare, "I was told that you were more or less made by your old school's principal to be as much of an asshole as you were back during the tournament between U.A. and Vulcan, and that you wouldn't have acted as such otherwise if things were up to you."

"…I will not hide how much I resent Principal Hojo, or how she runs Vulcan," Akuma remarked, "If it were up to me during the tournament against U.A., I would have just placed that magic horse girl I fought outside of the ring, just like I did with that green hair girl I fought during the tournament between Vulcan and Ketsubutsu."

Bakugo simply glared at the satanic hero-in-training for a few seconds. "…Yeah, Itsuka here managed to get videos of all of the fights from that tournament and show them to me." Crossing his arms over his chest, the explosive teen continued, "I can at least give you cred for not brutalizing that green-haired girl that was put into 1-A with me and the others. But it still pisses me off that you did brutalize Pony."

"Humph, sorry that I roughed up your girlfriend," Akuma scoffed indifferently, turning his head to the side to look away from Bakugo.

Instantly, Bakugo lit up red like a shiny Christmas ornament. "P-Pony's not my girlfriend!" Bakugo exclaimed, "I'm still trying to-"

Right away, Bakugo was cut off when he, as well as Akuma, Itsuka and every other student in that area heard a bunch of screaming, coming from multiple people. Looking in the direction that all of the shouting and panicked yells were coming from, Itsuka asked, "What in the name of Gilgamesh could that all be about?"

As Reiko, Pony and Bakugo's present squad members came up to join the three of them, they saw Ojiro and Hagakure come jogging up to all of them. "Guys, bad news!" Ojiro said in a clearly panicked tone, "A bunch of guys just up and stormed into U.A. ground and are making a mess of everything!"

"You have got to be kidding me!" Bakugo said, "Aizawa-sensei and a bunch of other teachers are manning the front entry gate into U.A. grounds! There's no way they could have let those guys slip past them!"

"There's just that many of them, Bakugo," Hagakure explained, "Aizawa-sensei and the other teachers are currently trying to subdue the men over by the front entry gate, but there's so many men that a lot of them have flooded into the festival area." Letting out a troubled sigh before she continued, the invisible girl said, "And that's not even the worst part. Do you remember the trip to the United States that we took, just before we returned to Japan and had to deal with that big monster attack in the city?"

Scoffing, Bakugo said, "How can I forget that disaster? Because of Grape Head, me and a lot of the guys in our class were all almost killed by that samurai bastard with the gold fire quirk." Gently shaking his head, Bakugo said, "I still can't believe Grape Head wasn't expelled for all of that. And I was looking forward to it, too." When the explosive teen mentioned how he was almost killed by someone, Akuma could not help but arch a wry eyebrow, his interest having been piqued.

"I was looking forward to Mineta being expelled as well before the dream was crushed, but that's not the point," Hagakure said. Gesturing over in the direction a lot of the noises were coming from, Hagakure explained, "All of the men that stormed onto U.A. grounds are all in the same outfits as the two men that tried to murder Uraraka during the field trip."

Now the attention of everyone was piqued, Mina's especially. "You've got to be kidding me!" the pink-skinned girl snapped, clearly pissed, "You mean to tell me that those guys that want to kill Uraraka are back again?!"

"Uraraka should be over by the carriage ride attraction with Izuku, Tenya, Shinso and Todoroki," Ojiro said to the others, "No doubt that they'll get Uraraka someplace safe before those men can get to her, assuming that she's a target again."

"The teachers are getting a bit overwhelmed with all of the men that stormed U.A.," Hagakure said, "And even though some of the people visiting U.A., including the monster studnets from Azu-Daioh High, are helping to fight back, we can still use some help."

At that notion, Bakugo pounded a fist into his hand, a look of amusement on his face. Likewise, Akuma did the same gesture as the explosive teen. "Now that is what I call a festival activity," Bakugo said, "And to think that my idea for a cage match arena was shot down."

"How many of you guys can go check out the gymnasium where the carriage ride attraction is set up outside of?" Ojiro asked, "Hagakure and I saw a number of the men head in that direction when one of them-"

"Gymnasium, got it," Bakugo said as he took a running start in the direction of the gymnasium, cutting Ojiro off before he could finish. Likewise, Akuma, Sero, Kaminari and Mina all took off after the ashy blonde-haired boy, leaving Ojiro and Hagakure with Itsuka, Pony and Reiko.

Gesturing to the 1-B girls, Ojiro asked, "…Can you three help Hagakure and I with some of the men over where the booths are set up?" Itsuka and her classmates all agreed as they took off with Ojiro and Hagakure in the direction of all of the booths for the festival.

* * *

Bakugo, his squad minus Kirishima (he was still at the one booth with Kinoko) and Akuma were all running right for the U.A. gymnasium, where a bunch of the men with the two would be killers that tried to kill Uraraka was said to be at. "About damn time something interesting was happing at the festival!" Bakugo snarled in amusement, "I could use some entertainment."

"You mentioned something about this fellow you call Grape Head," Akuma began, "Who I am going to guess is that Mineta fellow in your class, almost got you and a few other guys killed during a field trip over in the United States." With a curious look on his face, the Satanist of U.A. asked, "Care to explain?"

Kaminari, with a troubled look on his face, explained, "There was this samurai-looking guy who Mineta pissed off really, really bad. Mineta ran away from the guy, leading him into fighting me, Bakugo, Izuku, Tenya, Todoroki, Tokoyami and Kirishima. The guy had this…this insanely powerful gold fire quirk, and when he wasn't able to get past the seven of us to continue going after Mineta, he ended up attacking us instead." Letting out a resigned sigh, Kaminari said, "The seven of us were almost killed by that guy."

The satanic hero-in-training looked like his interest was piqued even more. "…Those seven you listed seem to me to be among the more powerful members in your class," Akuma remarked, "And yet all seven of you all at once fought one lone guy and not only lost to him, but you were almost killed by him. And what's this about a gold fire quirk?"

"He can do the same thing as you, Devil prick," Bakugo said, "Only whereas your fire is black, his is golden." Right after Bakugo finished his indifferent explanation, he and the rest of the group arrived outside of the U.A. gymnasium, where they saw a number of U.A. students fighting some of the men already.

Seeing that there was still plenty of the men that stormed the school grounds available for him to throttle, the explosive teen sneered in delight. "And I'm glad that there's still plenty of party to be had!" Bakugo said. Turning to face the rest of his group, Bakugo said, "Pinky, you go find Round Face and help protect her from these bastards that want to kill her for some reason we still don't know yet. Sero, Kaminari, you two go help Deku and the others over there." Bakugo points to where Izuku and his friends were fighting some of the men that stormed U.A. grounds.

"Devil prick, you're with me," Bakugo said to the satanic hero-in-training, "If you're still as strong as you were during the tournaments, then we'll be needing you to kick some ass around here. Got it?"

Looking over where the other U.A. students were fighting all of the men, Akuma gave an amused sneering growl, similar to what Bakugo can do. "Against guys like these men that dared to attack a high school…" Akuma said as he cracked his knuckles, small wisps of black flames flickering up from his hands, "…I wouldn't mind dishing out all of my brutal savagery."

Smirking since Akuma clearly had the right idea, Bakugo said, "Good enough for me. Alright everyone, go!" The group of five students broke up into the teams Bakugo stated and rushed off to tackle their respective assignments. While Mina ran around to the side to look for Uraraka, the boys proceeded to attack the raiding men up front.

"Bakugo!" Teyna called out over where he, Izuku, Shinso and Todoroki were fighting some of the men, "Glad to see that you and some of the others showed up here to help out!"

"What's the exact situation, Glasses?" Bakugo yelled after blasting one of the raiding men in the face with an explosion, throwing him back.

After kicking out the feet of one of the raiding men from beneath him, Tenya explained, "All of the men that are attacking here are all dressed similarly to the two men that had tried to murder Uraraka back when we were in the United States on our field trip! Also, when one of the men spotted Uraraka, all of them tried going after her, clearly with the intent to kill her!"

Bakugo blasted another one of the raiding men away with another explosion, around the same time that Akuma engulfed one of them on a pillar of black flames. "So we can assume that those two bastards and all of these bastards are all on the same team to try and kill Round Face, right?" the explosive teen asked before grabbing one of the raiding men from behind and getting said man into a headlock.

After sending one of the raiding men flying away with a Delaware Smash Air Force, Izuku turned around and said, "That's what we've all concluded, Kacchan!" Another one of the raiding men tried running up to Izuku to punch him, but the green-haired cinnamon roll simply sent him reeling back with a devastating punch to the face, making him practically cartwheel back by about a dozen feet or so. "We've got to get all of this fighting under control before we go look for Uraraka and get her out of here!" Izuku said, "She's clearly in danger so long as all of these men are still here trying to find her!"

"We also ought to try and capture some of these idiots," Kaminari said as he zapped one of the raiding men, "Some of them might know something, including who might potentially be putting all of them up-" Kaminari was cut off when he and all of the other U.A. studnets heard a loud blast of electrical power come from within the gymnasium itself. Looking around in confusion, the electric quirk boy said, "…That wasn't me."

"It came from inside of the gymnasium," Akuma said as he pointed over to said building. To Bakugo, the Satanist of U.A. said, "We ought to go check it out, Bakugo!"

Bakugo, although he didn't like how Akuma was trying to tell him what to do, nonetheless went along with him, figuring that who or whatever had made that electrical attack inside of the gymnasium was worth checking out. The explosive teen hoped that it wouldn't be a waste of time, because there was still plenty of the raiding men outside, and he wanted to take out as many of them as possible, otherwise he wouldn't feel satisfied.

* * *

Inside the gymnasium, Mina and Uraraka were looking over at someone that they were facing off against. Mina had small arcs of electricity sparking up over various areas of her body, and Uraraka was covering her left bicep with her right hand. A rather noticeable amount of blood was oozing out from under the gravity girl's hands, a clear sign that she had been either stabbed or cut there. Both 1-A girls looked nervous, and Uraraka looked afraid for her life, as they were facing off against the man standing a dozen or so feet away.

The man was early to mid-thirties; he had fair skin, long shaggy dishwater blonde hair, and he wore a stark black t-shirt with a yellow lightning bolt shape on the upper chest area under an open in the front long-sleeved top similar to what all of the raiding men wore, a pair of durable looking jeans, and sturdy looking dark gray shoes. The man was also notably well-toned of body, and he also had small arcs of electricity coming up all over his person. However, unlike how it was for Mina, the man did not seemed bother by it all.

Pointing his right index finger at Mina, the man said, "You, pink girl. Get out of here and leave your friend here. My associates and I are aiming to kill her, and I'd rather not have to get yelled at by the boss for failing."

"Why the hell do you guys want to kill Uraraka?!" the pink-skinned girl screamed at the electric man, "What did she ever do to piss off that boss of yours?!"

Shrugging indifferently, the electric man said, "Look, the lads and I are only trying to do a job here. We don't know why the boss wants us to kill the Uraraka brat, but we just do as-"

"HOWITZER IMPACT!"

"HAIL SATAN!"

The two simultaneous shouts were followed up by two powerful attacks flying right at the electric man, forcing him to jump back to avoid the brunt of the attack. Mina and Uraraka both looked over and saw that Bakugo and Akuma had run into the gymnasium, having thrown a mix of explosions and black flames respectively at the man that was clearly with the raiding men that were attacking U.A. grounds.

As the electric man was recovering, Bakugo and Akuma both turned to where Mina and Uraraka were both standing. "Pinky!" Bakugo shouted at Mina, "You get Round Face out of here right now! The Devil prick and I will take care of that asshole over there!"

Mina, still a bit surprised similar to Uraraka by the sudden appearance of Bakugo and Akuma seemingly working together, slowly nodded once she realized what the explosive teen was trying to do. Nodding once in agreement, Mina turned to face Uraraka, grabbed her by her left hand (the gravity girl flinched slightly when her left arm was pulled up ever so slightly as it made her bleeding wound slightly aggravated) and then proceeded to run out of the gymnasium with her, leaving the boys to fight the electric man.

Looking in the direction that the two 1-A girls fled in, the electric man scoffed in an annoyed tone. "…The lads and I have to kill the Uraraka brat, boys," the electric man snarled, "Why the hell did you let her get away?"

"Tell you what," Akuma said as he and Bakugo turned to properly face the electric man, "You tell us what we want to know, and maybe we'll oblige you."

"Heh, fine," the electric man replied, more amused than anything, "I should give you my name first, though. The name's Raijin Striker, and before you ask, no, I have no clue why the boss wants me and the lads to kill the Uraraka brat."

"Then maybe you can tell us who this boss of yours is!" Bakugo snarled at Raijin.

The electric man gave an amused smirk. Gesturing for Bakugo and Akuma to come up and fight him, Raijin said, "…Maybe I'll dish if you can beat it out of me." That was a good enough answer for both the explosive teen and the satanic hero-in-training, as they both rushed at Raijin together, aiming to beat him senseless.

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Author's notes;

Well Bakugo and Akuma found the boss enemy, and that fight will take place in the next chapter. A few side fights involving other parties will also occur, and the monster students from Azu-Daioh High will show off why you don't have to be a quirked human to have powers and be able to kick some ass. But that is another tale for another time, a time that will be gone over in detail when the next chapter drops. As a side note, I'm currently working on the chapter for my Rosario Vampire story that sees the events of this mini arc from the Rosa-Vamp point of view; it'll be out sometime shortly after I finish this current mini-arc for this story, in case any of you are interested.


	24. Chapter 24

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter twenty-four: Carney Chaos, part three

Both Bakugo and Akuma were surprised by the combat capabilities of Raijin Striker. The bulky, electric quirk man grinned in sadistic amusement as he fired a bolt of lightning that was blocked by a Hellfire Wall that Akuma had conjured up to protect Bakugo from getting hit. Right as he made that wall of black flames, Akuma spewed a Devil's Breath at Raijin, but that was dodged when Raijin, his feet cloaked in electricity, leapt to his side by about a meter.

The explosive teen fired an AP Shot: Auto Cannon, sending many shots right at Raijin. Some of the shots were dodged, but Raijin ended up taking one or two. Granted, they were all to areas that didn't result in crippling the man's combat capabilities, but Bakugo was the first of Raijin's opposition to land a hit on him. Akuma followed it up soon after as, while Raijin was stunned for a moment due to being hit, he struck the electrical quirk man with a Burning Mark.

Recovering as he stood about a meter away, Raijin let out an amused laugh. "Well now, ain't this something!" Raijin laughed in sadistic amusement, "You little guys are actually making me work up a sweat! And here I thought that all of you U.A. brats were going to be total pushovers like what the boss told me and the lads that Uraraka girl would be!" With an indifferent scoff, Raijin added, "It still pisses me off that you two let her get away before I could kill her."

"I still want answers about all of that, you bastard," Bakugo barked, an annoyed snarl on his face, "Why does that boss of yours want Round Face dead?"

"And who is this boss of yours that had you all storm U.A. in the middle of our school festival that Azu-Daioh High came over to see?" Akuma demanded more than asked, his tone and expression making it clear that he was in no mood to be led around in circles.

The bulky, electrical quirk man only laughed, the force of his laughing making his form shake ever so slightly. "You little guys still have to try and beat the answers that you all want out of me, you know," Raijin pointed out, "I won't go saying nothing to either of you two until you two both knock me unconscious." Since what Raijin said wouldn't work anyway since he can't talk if he's unconscious, Bakugo and Akuma both resolved to simply beat him into submission, capture him, and interrogate the man. If Raijin still wouldn't spill then, then they'd just hand him over to local law enforcement and have them make him talk.

There was no way, not after all that Raijin and the other men in his group did while attacking U.A. during their school festival with Azu-Daioh High, that Bakugo or Akuma would allow him to get away without consequence or without giving them what they want to know. Besides, they were both enjoying the fight against Raijin. No way were they going to stop just because he was refusing to talk.

* * *

Shoto Todoroki was alarmed when he spotted Dabi, as well as Dabi's fellows Spinner and Toga, on U.A. campus grounds while the large group of men aiming to kill Uraraka stormed the grounds themselves. The half-and-half boy then lost all worry and went right into the territory of being absolutely livid when he saw Dabi punch Reiko Yanagi in the side of her head with enough force to knock her out; the blue fire villain then picked Reiko up, slung her unconscious form over his right shoulder then, as he shot Todoroki a 'follow me' kind of look, turned around and went off into another area of U.A. grounds while Toga and Spinner scattered.

By no means was the youngest son of Endeavor going to allow Dabi to kidnap his crush. With more fury than he ever remembered ever feeling ever, Todoroki rushed right after Dabi, staying in hot pursuit of the blue fire villain. Dabi, despite carrying a student slung over his shoulder, was able to stay ahead of Todoroki the entire time. The half-and-half boy feared what Dabi had in mind for a girl as cute as Reiko, but said worry was slowly replaced with confusion when he realized that not only had Dabi yet to do anything to Reiko other than knock her out, but he was leading him (Todoroki) to as far of an edge on U.A. grounds as possible, as if the blue fire villain wanted Todoroki away from the siege.

"…Well now," Dabi said as he was in a wooded area on the edge of U.A. grounds. Setting the knocked out Reiko down on the ground in a sitting position with her back against a tree, Dabi straightened up right when Todoroki reached him. Turning around, Dabi spotted the youngest son of Endeavor, saw the enraged look of savage fury in the boy's eyes. "…It looks like I made the right guess on which girl here it was that you are smitten with," Dabi said as he, while facing Todoroki, aimed his (Dabi's) left palm in Reiko's direction. The hand became engulfed in the blue flames that the villain was known for.

Todoroki, upon seeing the blue flame villain taking aim at the cute ghost girl of class 1-B, went wide-eyed with alarm. "…Don't worry, Son of Endeavor," Dabi said, "So long as you do as I say, this girl here won't end up covered in skin as purple and wrinkly as the various patches all over my own body."

Todoroki was beyond disgusted with the villain standing before him; how dare he threaten the cutest girl that had ever lived! The half-and-half boy felt a burning need to do to Dabi what Bakugo regularly threatened to do to Izuku, only unlike with Bakugo, Todoroki was very much intending to actually act on said feelings. He was _that_ mad at Dabi for going so far as to threaten class 1-B's resident ghost girl. Todoroki now understood how that gold fire guy back over in the States felt due to Mineta's actions.

…Still, with the girl who stole his heart in such immediate danger, Todoroki didn't dare try to do anything that would prompt Dabi to act on his threats. "…I assume that you decided to lead me on because of some beef that you have with my father," the half-and-half boy said as he tried with great effort to calm himself.

With a shrug, Dabi replied, "You can say that." The blue flames engulfing Dabi's left hand were willed out, bringing some measure of safety to the unconscious Reiko. Dabi turned slightly to that he was fully facing Todoroki, making sure his hostage was right behind him so that there would be no attempt by Todoroki to get her out of there. "…You could also say that I led you all the way here for your sake."

Todoroki's brows arched a bit out of a mix of piqued interest, curiosity, and sheer confusion. "You kidnapped the girl I have a crush on and used her as bait to lead me all the way over to this remote area on U.A. grounds…for my sake."

The blue flame villain nodded twice in confirmation. "Let's just say that…I have my reasons for wanting to make sure that you were kept away from all of the fighting." Gesturing to Todoroki, Dabi went on, "Oh, before you ask, no. I, as well as Spinner and Toga, are not part of the attack on your school. We're only here to do some of our own work."

"What sort of work is it?" Todoroki demanded more than asked.

Dabi merely shrugged in an indifferent manner. "To be honest, it's none of your business. But if it does make you feel better, none of us have any intention to kill anyone, much less physically harm anyone unless someone forces us to react in self-defense." Dabi jerked a thumb over his shoulder to point out the knocked out Reiko. "…I only did what I did with this girl here because of how I wanted to lead you away from all of the fighting."

"Which you claim you're doing for my sake."

Once more, the blue-flame villain nodded. "My interest in keeping you from all of the fighting isn't because you're a threat to what Toga, Spinner and I are up to. And I couldn't care less about the group aiming to kill the Uraraka girl; if that group fails their job to kill the girl, then it's no skin off my nose. I don't even care about the fact that their group and mine draw some income from the same benefactor."

Todoroki's eyes widened a bit more when he got that last bit from Dabi. "The League of Villains are working with the group trying to kill Uraraka?"

"It's the Paranormal Liberation Front now," Dabi informed the youngest son of Endeavor, "It's been like that after we absorbed the Meta Liberation Army." The blue flame villain gently shook his head. "And we aren't working with the group trying to kill your friend. We just happen to draw some of our respective income from the same benefactor. Our work and theirs don't mix."

Todoroki growled in annoyed anger as Dabi was leading him on. "…Since you say that your group and the group aiming to kill Uraraka are both paid by the same person, then do you know who this person is, or what the person looks like?"

"Ah ah, that would be telling," Dabi replied, wagging a finger in a 'nah ah ah' fashion. Todoroki was beyond angry that not only was he getting nothing that would help explain why there were a trio of villains on U.A. grounds while the group aiming to kill Uraraka were storming the place, but that Reiko was still in danger as Dabi was using her as a hostage. Todoroki wished that his father, the very hero that Dabi had a grudge against apparently, were able to follow along to help him rescue Reiko and potentially also capture and interrogate Dabi.

But the last that Todoroki, as well as a very much relieved Dabi, saw as they ran past where Endeavor was located, the Flame Hero was currently in the middle of fighting many of the men of the group that had stormed U.A. grounds. A few others, including some of the teachers, a few other pro heroes, and even some of the monster students from Azu-Daioh High, were also in that area fighting the men that stormed the school grounds, but Todoroki could tell that all of them would be too busy with what all that they were caught up in to follow the direction that he ran in so that he could go after Dabi.

Todoroki was on his own here.

* * *

Unlike with what they had to do when the hordes of Hirajo attacked the city a while ago, Endeavor and the other heroes, pro and student alike, did not have to forsake the one part of the heroes' code that said 'no killing'. A good number of the attacking men were defeated by the heroic persons defending U.A. grounds, with said persons glad that they weren't ordered/being forced to kill.

The various monster students from Azu-Daioh High, although they had nowhere near as many reservations when it came to killing, took a cue from the quirked heroes and refrained from taking lives themselves. Aizawa, after he knocked out and captured one of the grunts in the group that was attacking the school, saw an icy blue-haired boy run up to a girl with long pink hair and removed a cross attached to a choker around the girl's neck.

After this, the girl radiated a lot of energy as she underwent some manner of transformation where her hair turned silvery white and her…assets…grew in size a bit. The transformed girl then proceeded to roundhouse kick any and all of the attacking men that she came across as she occasionally said, "Know your place!" whenever she knocked out a man.

Aizawa said nothing of this, only focusing on his part in trying to help subdue and hopefully repel the attack this group was trying to carry out. However, both he and Sekijiro when the latter joined up with the former, expressed surprise when they saw some German looking boy over by a stall that Sato was running transform into the large red dragon that they remember seeing during the monster attack in the city; it was the same large red dragon that attacked and killed that Lovecraftian horror at one point.

"It's flying in the direction of the gymnasium!" Sekijiro said as he and Aizawa watched the dragon fly up and soar over the various building on U.A. grounds.

"Well it's helping us fight all of these men that stormed the grounds," Aizawa remarked as he turned to face another one of the attacking men. Quickly subduing said person, the underground hero looked around, more confused and slightly worried than angry. "Just who are all of these men?" Aizawa practically exclaimed, "Their group worries me, especially since not all of these men have quirks!"

A punch from Sekijiro knocked out another one of the attacking men, and after he took that man out, Sekijiro turned to face Aizawa. "You said that these men look like they're affiliated with the two from your class's field trip? The two men that tried to kill one of your female students?"

Aizawa, with a grunt, knocked out one of the attacking men with a punch to his face after ensnaring said man with his capturing weapon. "Exactly, and I for one would really like to know why this group is so keen on killing Uraraka!" The teachers of class 1-A and 1-B heard one of the attacking men yell out as he ran at them.

Looking over, Aizawa and Sekijiro saw a particularly tall and muscular man belonging to the attacking group charge right at them. Neither U.A. teacher had any idea which one of them was the charging man's target, but said man was cut off from charging at them when someone rushed in to get in the way. A punch to the gut from the person that rushed in made the charging man take pause as he coughed a bit.

As the charging man stumbled back a bit, Aizawa and Sekijiro recognized the person who had saved them as Aizawa's student Kirishima, who was in his Red Riot Unbreakable form. "You and Sekijiro-sensei alright, Aizawa-sensei?" Kirishima called out as, with his arms raised up in front of himself, he caught the charging man's overhead fist slam. The hardening quirk red-haired boy blocked a few more said fist slams before he caught both of the man's hands with his own, resulting in the two of them struggling against each other, pushing against one another as their fingers were locked.

At first, the charging man seemed to have the strength advantage over Kirishima. But not five seconds after the finger-locked struggle between the man and Kirishima began, the man began to cough and wheeze painfully, his breathing quickly becoming labored. He let go of Kirishima's hands as he stumbled back a few steps, fell to his knees, and fell over onto the ground, laying sprawled out as a few small mushrooms fell out of his open mouth. Similarly, mushrooms came out of the man's nostrils, each nostril clogged up by a mushroom stem.

"Are you okay, Eijiro?" Kinoko's voice called out, prompting Aizawa and Sekijiro to look over in the direction they heard class 1-B's resident mushroom girl call out from. Sure enough, the two U.A. teachers spotted Kinoko standing a ways away, using a stall as cover to make sure that the attacking men wouldn't be likely to spot her as she supported Kirishima from afar.

As Kirishima shot Kinoko a thumbs-up in thanks for the support, Aizawa and Sekijiro turned to face one another, impressed by the cooperation between students from their respective classes. Maybe the desire of Sekijiro's student Itsuka to see all of 1-A and 1-B get along was a valid thing for her to wish for.

* * *

"You little guys are going to go down right now!" Raijin shouted, something of an enraged snarl on his face, as he threw some electricity at Bakugo and Akuma as their battle in the gymnasium raged on. Despite how the efforts of the two U.A. boys were entertaining at first, Raijin was still expecting them to roll over and be easy wins for him. So it goes without saying that since the two of them were not only being hard for him to take down, but were actually doing a fair bit of damage to him, the bulky, electrical quirk man was starting to lose some of his temper.

Raijin's mistake of losing his cool actually benefited Bakugo and Akuma; he was getting sloppy in his form, allowing the two boys to score more and more hit on him while avoiding more and more of his own attacks. He may still be one of the single strongest opponents that either of the two destructive boys may have ever faced, but now Raijin was starting to prove to be nothing more than just another villain for the explosive teen and the Satanist of U.A. to take down, catch and interrogate for answers.

Akuma ran around while Bakugo stayed in front of Raijin. This way, while Bakugo fired a lot of shots from his AP Shot: Auto-Cannon on Raijin's front, Akuma was able to strike his back with a Blazing Pentagram. The attacks the two boys launched while flanking Raijin worked well as a pincer attack, and soon enough, the bulky, electrical quirk man fell forward, landing on his left palm and right knee in something of a kneeling positon.

Bakugo, still keeping his right hand aimed at Raijin, walked forward towards the kneeling man while Akuma remained where he stood to attack from a distance if need be. "Your bullshit that you and all of your little buttfuck buddies attacking U.A. are trying to pull off ends here, fucker," the explosive teen snarled, "Now, your sorry ass will surrender to me and the Devil prick, and you will spill all that we want to know from you." As Bakugo threatened him, Raijin actually let out a laugh.

Bakugo looked confused, but he soon got the idea when Akuma yelled for him to get back while jumping back himself. Bakugo was barely able to avoid getting hit by a dome-shaped burst of electricity that exploded from Raijin as he quickly stood back up, albeit with some struggle. It was clear that the bulky, electrical quirk man was nowhere near ready to go down. He aimed his right hand at Bakugo and his left at Akuma behind him as he discharged bolts of electricity from both palms, making both boys scramble to get out of the way.

"If you little guys think I'm going down, then you got another thing coming!" Both U.A. students scoffed in annoyance as they realized that they were going to have to beat this guy up some more if they were going to defeat and capture him for good.

* * *

Izuku and the others outside of the gymnasium, despite how they had defeated a number of the men in the group that was in the middle of raiding U.A., were struggling a bit if only due to the sheer numbers that the attacking group came with. Tenya noted that not all of the men that he and his fellow students were fighting had quirks, leading him to conclude that the attacking group was a mixed criminal-villain organization that all worked for a common cause, a cause that both Tenya and Izuku knew to their regret was to kill their friend Uraraka.

"This is looking bad, Midoriya!" Tenya yelled over where he had just knocked out another one of the attacking men, "We'll get overrun at this rate!"

"Tell me something-" Izuku yelled back, pausing to punch and knock out one of the men himself, "-I don't know!"

The fighting went on for a few more seconds like that, but all came to a stop when the large red dragon that Aizawa and Sekijiro spotted flew over the area outside of the U.A. gymnasium. "Humans of U.A. High School!" the dragon called out as it flew overhead, his words (the dragon sounded very much male) laced with Germany, "Do you need assistance?"

Everyone had stopped short when they saw the dragon, and the attacking group paled a bit when the dragon declared that it was here to back up the U.A. students. Said students themselves were a bit too stunned to react right away, but Izuku quickly shook his head as he looked up at the dragon. "Yes! We can very much use whatever help we can get! All of the men that are dressed the same are here to try and kill me and Tenya's friend Uraraka!"

The dragon snorted in disgust as he eyed some of the attacking men. He then cast his gaze back at the green-haired cinnamon roll. "So that is why this invading force stormed your school," the dragon said as he flew in place overhead, "I did not know the reason until now. Very well." The dragon then landed with a mildly ground-shaking thud, its tail twitching slightly in a manner to suggest that the dragon was going to spin around in place to strike people with the tail.

Izuku, Tenya and the other U.A. students in that area all fell to the ground and laid there right before the dragon spun around in place, smacking a good number of the attacking men. One of the men foolishly tried running up to the dragon and attack him from the front, but the dragon merely brushed him aside with the back of his right front hand, doing so with enough force to send him reeling back a bit.

The U.A. students who saw this were surprised to see that the dragon was clearly aiming not to kill anyone. Curious, Tenya spoke up as he laid on the ground. "You aren't trying to kill any of these men." It was more a statement than a curious inquiry.

"My friends and I in our school's newspaper club, as well as all other monster students from Azu-Daioh High, are respecting the no-killing policy you heroic lot like to live by as we lend aid in stopping this invading force," the dragon explained. He caught one of the attacking men with his right front hand, picked him up somewhat, and then threw him to the ground, keeping his right hand on him to keep the man pinned. The dragon looked up from his prisoner and over to where the class 1-A rep was just now starting to get up from where he laid on the ground. With an amused smirk, the dragon said, "…Also, I would like to thank you for sending me in the direction of your classmate Sato. His sweets were simply delicious."

Tenya, as he thought about it, suddenly went wide-eyed with realization. "You're that German boy that was in the group of boys from your school's newspaper club!" Tenya exclaimed. The class 1-A rep, as well as Izuku and the other U.A. students in that area, all looked over at the dragon, who to those who knew the truth realized that it was the true monster form of Azu-Daioh High student Draco Fireswarm.

The dragon confirmed with a nod that he was indeed Draco, right before he tossed the man he held pinned with his right hand over to a slight concentration of U.A. students. The fighting went on for a bit outside of the U.A. gymnasium, but with the arrival of a dragon backing them up, Izuku and his fellow students felt renewed hope in their struggles against this invading force of men that stormed U.A. in their efforts to murder the innocent gravity girl, for reasons that none of them still know anything about.

* * *

Bakugo and Akuma were struggling as their fight against Raijin dragged on. Sure, the bulky, electrical quirk man was running on fumes by this point, but the same wasn't exactly untrue of the explosive teen and the Satanist of U.A. "Hot *huff* *huff* fucking damn," Bakugo panted in exhaustion as he, Akuma and Raijin were all starting to wear out, "This fucker *huff* just won't quit, now *huff* will he?"

"You're holding *huff* back to avoid damaging the *huff* *huff* gymnasium like I am, right?" Akuma called out as he tried catching his breath. Similar to Bakugo, Akuma was also exhausted, not to mention he and Bakugo had finally taken a few hits each from Raijin.

"Don't want *huff* fucking Four-Eyes to give *huff* me an earful!" Bakugo called back as he pulled off a small, regular explosion that grazed Raijin's left flank.

The Satanist of U.A., raising both of his hands up and aimed towards Raijin while said hands were engulfed in black flames. "I have an idea on *huff* how to stop this *huff* bastard, but it'll require us to *huff* *huff* suspend P.E. classes here until the gymnasium's *huff* rebuilt."

Bakugo, realizing that Akuma's plan was basically the two of them going all out with their attacks, holding nothing back without any care of the collateral damage that would result, could not help but let out an amused grin. "…I never really liked P.E. anyway."

The two high-tempered boy proceeded to unleash a barrage of their respective attacks onto Raijin, holding nothing back and allowing their respective power to run roughshod all over their impromptu battlefield in the gymnasium. The ceiling overhead was slammed by black flames and explosions, the hard tile floor was busted and cracked, and things all over the place began to catch on fire with black flames.

Raijin, although he normally would have been amused by his opponents finally letting loose, was being tossed around like a rag doll by the explosive teen and the Satanist of U.A. Sure, the two boys were totally wrecking the gymnasium in the process of beating Raijin, but given how much of an effort the bulky, electrical quirk man was giving, how much of a pain in the rear he was for the two boys to defeat, it could be very easily argued that such force, such savagery was needed in order to finally defeat Raijin.

Finally, after a Howitzer Impact to his front and a Hail Satan to his back, Raijin was finally knocked out, falling to his knees before falling over face-first and passing out. Bakugo and Akuma, victorious at last, allowed their respective exhaustion to overtake the two of them. They both fell over backwards, landing on their respective rear ends as they caught their breath. Bakugo pumped his right fist up into the air as he let out an exhausted cheer of victory; Bakugo was more worn out than he was when he had defeated Akuma back in the tournament between U.A. and Vulcan, and the Satanist himself had helped him beat Raijin just now.

Bakugo, despite being himself, could not help but worry about how there was someone so powerful out there.

The two exhausted U.A. boys were panting as they tried catching their breath, but they stopped short when they saw two known villains, Toga and Spinner, enter the gymnasium. "Oh, looky here, Spinner!" Toga gushed in psychotic delight, "Two busted up boys! They would both look much better if they were both bleeding, don't you think?"

"Toga, no," Spinner said firmly, "Our objective here is only to do recon. No killing or otherwise getting into fights unless we can't help it." Looking over where the knocked out Raijin laid on the busted up gymnasium floor as the gymnasium itself was starting to go up in flames, the lizard man let out a mildly disappointed scoff. "Although the objective of Raijin and the rest of his group goes against the will of Stain, it would be bad if he were captured and interrogated by the heroes. That would end up leading to big trouble for the benefactor that funnels funds to both their group and the Front."

Bakugo and Akuma were unsure of what to make of what Spinner was saying, but they both went wide-eyed in alarm when Toga, acting on her own, rushed over and slashed the throat of the knocked-out Raijin. This action from the psychotic school girl likewise drew an alarmed look out of Spinner. "Toga, you idiot!" Spinner snapped, "I was going to say that we ought to collect Raijin while the hero kids here were too exhausted to stop us! There was no need to kill him!"

Toga's look when Spinner told her of what he had in mind was a clear sign that she was embarrassed. "…Oops."

Letting out an exasperated, frustrated sigh that sounded long suffering, Spinner merely shook his head. "Just forget it. He wasn't one of the Front, so it's ultimately no skin of our noses." The lizard man jerked his head for Toga to follow him. Understanding the cue, Toga dashed over to Spinner and followed him out of the burning gymnasium, getting away from the worn out and exhausted Bakugo and Akuma as a result.

Bakugo and Akuma were beyond stunned that they had seen a villain just up and kill someone right in front of them. Despite their respective natures, and despite Bakugo himself having killed a few warmongers during the monster attack a while ago (despite the airs that he was putting on at the time, Bakugo truly was not one for killing, much like all other heroes), the two teen boys were still shocked to see someone killed right in front of them. Akuma even leaned to his side a bit to throw up.

It was on the scene of the gymnasium going up in flames, with an exhausted Bakugo and an exhausted Akuma who had just thrown up sitting before the corpse of Raijin, that Izuku, Tenya and a few other U.A. students rushed into the gymnasium, aided by some of the monster students from Azu-Daioh High. Izuku collected Bakugo while Azu-Daioh High werewolf student Ginei Morioka collected Akuma.

As Bakugo and Akuma were escorted out of the burning gymnasium, they saw Ginei's friend Draco rush in. A few moments later, they saw him rush back out while carrying Raijin's remains. He threw the remains on the ground, transformed into a large red dragon (Bakugo and Akuma were surprised in the process), and proceeded to breath a highly concentrated fire breath on the body. Never before had either boy seen true dragon's fire in action, and Akuma knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his black flames weren't quite at such a level of power.

Eventually, Draco's breath attack on Raijin's remains had ceased; to the shock of most, all that remained of Raijin were charred bones. Ginei explained to the questioning U.A. students that what Draco did was an effort to make sure any persons capable of raising the dead wouldn't be able to do much of anything with Raijin, now that nothing of him but bones were left. Draco, with a large draconic fist, even proceeded to grind the skeleton into a fine, powdery dust, truly making Raijin no more.

Those from the realm of monsters take disposing of the remains of those who were not to be raised from the dead very seriously, it seemed.

* * *

Due to the attack on U.A. High School, the festival had to be canceled until enough of the school was repaired. Despite what Principal Nezu worried about, the event actually helped to build some degree of camaraderie between the students of U.A. and Azu-Daioh High. After all of the messy business had been taken care of, Nezu called for an overview meeting with all of the U.A. staff members.

Holding up a printed copy of the report, Nezu said, "All of the men who attacked U.A. but were knocked out were captured and brought in for questioning." Setting the file down, the quirked animal principal continued with a troubled sigh, "Unfortunately, the only one from the group that attacked U.A. who knew any details that could help us was Raijin Striker, and he was killed by a member of the League according to Bakugo and Giratina."

"The commission will probably want to do some headhunting," Snipe remarked as he sat in his chair at the meeting table, his arms crossed over his chest. The marksman pro hero gently shook his head in a manner that conveyed disappointment. "I couldn't honestly fault them if that ended up being the case. After all, the attack on U.A. grounds not only endangered the students of our school, but also those of Azu-Daioh High, not to mention all of the various civilians that visited the grounds during the festival."

"No need to worry your head about that, Snipe," Nemuri called out over where she sat at the meeting table, getting everyone to look over to her. She straightened up some papers that she had sitting in front of her by picking them up and tapping the bottoms of them against her spot at the meeting table before setting said papers back down. "The commission, while still upset that the attack happened at all, isn't holding it against us because this is the first time that the group of men had ever made a move like this. The commission's official statement on the matter is that no one had any way at all to predict something like this."

"Nemuri's words hold true," Sekijiro remarked, "Likewise, the commission won't hold our lack of being able to repel the force of attacking men against us too much due to the sheer number of men that attacked at a time when there was no reason to assume that we'd have to be exactly ready to get into a scrape." The homeroom teacher of class 1-B let out a resigned sigh before he went on. "…However, the commission is taking steps to deal with the future so that events like the attack on U.A., as well as the recent monster attack, won't be as big of an issue as said events that I had just mentioned."

Aizawa, from where he sat between Nezu and Toshinori, nodded in agreement. "The commission is already working on making an alliance with the various forces that aided us pro heroes during the recent monster attack led by the now deceased monster warlord Hirajo," the underground hero said as he gave a printed report copy he held a light smack with the back of his right hand, "With skilled individuals like that, the future is all that more assured."

"The commission also wants the hero students to do another round of internships under pro heroes again," Higari pointed out, "This is all the more important for Aizawa's and Sekijiro's respective classes, as they now number twenty-five each as opposed to twenty each like it was before all of the recent changes."

"The Big Three are unavailable to take part in the internships, so that will give the total of ten new kids in 1-A and 1-B more of a chance to shine," Hizashi remarked, gesturing to his fellows at the meeting table. The pro hero Present Mic focused specifically on Aizawa and Sekijiro when he gestured in their direction. "A good number of pro heroes are already aware of this emergency round of internships, actually, and some specific pros are interested in specific students in your respective classes."

Hearing this piqued the interest of both Aizawa and Sekijiro, with the latter even saying, "Oh? So some of me and Aizawa's respective brats are already being scouted?" Aizawa was just as surprised, if not more so, than his co-worker in 1-B. However, the underground hero was much better at keeping the airs he gave off stoic.

Hizashi nodded twice in confirmation before he picked up some papers lying in front of him at his place at the meeting table. "Endeavor still intends to grab his son Shoto, as well as Bakugo and Midoriya." Looking up from his papers, Hizashi gave a look of mild amusement. "But he has been vouching for Giratina to various pros looking to get some interns from here at U.A. From what I was told, Gang Orca is strongly considering taking Giratina on as an intern, as the two of them are similar in being villainous looking heroes who are still very much heroic."

Aizawa and Sekijiro, the latter having come to appreciate the strength of Akuma's character, were glad that the current number one pro hero was giving his word on one of the newer students in U.A.'s hero course; after all that Akuma had faced came to light, the two pros were very much worried that, despite the true goodly nature of the Satanist of U.A., that he wouldn't do so well due to a good many people holding conventional standards. And with Gang Orca a very strong contender to take Akuma on as an intern, even Aizawa felt his heart soar at the good news.

And this says nothing of Toshinori, who had always thought nothing but good for the black flame quirk boy. The former symbol of peace had known all along that Akuma truly possessed the heart of a hero, and he felt that it was about high time for Akuma to start receiving the recognition that had long since been due to him. Toshinori turned to face Hizashi, the smile on the former number one pro hero's face unhideable. "It's good to hear that so many of our kids here are already being scouted by pros. It shows that their futures as pros themselves are bright and all but assured."

"Any other notable pros interested in any of Aizawa's or Sekijiro's students?" Nemuri asked, her tone seventy percent curious and thirty percent excited.

Hizashi nodded once as he picked his papers back up to scan through what all he had. "Ryukyu is interested in employing Aizawa's girls Uraraka and Asui as interns, just like last time."

"Ryukyu wants Uraraka as an intern again?" Sekijiro asked, "Despite how she's currently got a blatantly obvious target on her back?" The homeroom teacher of 1-B leaned forward slightly, his elbows resting on the table, as he looked at the pro hero Present Mic. "Uraraka was targeted for assassination not just during 1-A's recent field trip to the States, but in the attack on U.A. just now when all of those men stormed school grounds."

"Keep in mind that Ryukyu is one of Japan's top ranked pro heroes," Aizawa pointed out, "And if the Hero Billboard Chart predictions that were made just after the defeated monster attack on the city end up true, then Ryukyu will see a _very_ considerable jump in placement on the charts when the official list drops in a month and a half." Crossing his arms over his chest, Aizawa had a look of being assured on his face. "I can trust Ryukyu with Uraraka's safety."

A lot of the U.A. staff sitting at the table all nodded in agreement; the recent monster attack not only gave the pro heroes as a whole a considerable and much-needed boost in trust and faith from the public, but it also did well to garner a lot of positive attention for certain individual pro heroes. So much so that the predictions that Hizashi mentioned had to be drawn up, and hoo boy, do the predictions have a _lot_ to say.

Some pro heroes, such as Hawks and Kamui Woods, are actually predicted to go _down_ a number or two in the rankings, due to how they showed some reluctance to vanquish the warmongers during the aforementioned monster attack. Mirko is also predicted to go down a rank, but that was due to a very small but _very_ vocal group of small-minded parents who think Mirko's choice in her outfit makes her an ill-suited role model for small children; said parents are demanding that Mirko 'needs to outfit herself more modestly', as they put it.

However, just as there are a small number of pro heroes predicted to go down a rank or two, there are a good higher number that are predicted to go _up_ in the ranks. A notable example of this is Mt. Lady, who is predicted to rise up to the number fifteen position; Edgeshot is predicted to go up to the number three spot, and the aforementioned Gang Orca is predicted to go up to the number ten spot, regaining a position as one of the top ten pro heroes.

But the most lauded example of the predictions is Ryukyu. She's predicted to go from number ten to _number two_, ranking just below Endeavor who is, as expected, predicted to retain his position as number one. The Dragoon Hero's success in this field is attributed to the fact that out of all pro heroes that fought against the monster attack, she vanquished two and a half times more warmongers than Endeavor himself, who had the second-highest count from the attack. It also helped that Ryukyu's ability to transform into a dragon helps to deter various groups of evil monsters, like the hordes of Hirajo, from acting up.

Hizashi gave the papers he held a smack with the back of his hand. "Ryukyu was a bit disappointed when she was informed that she couldn't take on Nejiri as an intern again since she was unavailable," Hizashi remarked, "But the staff that talked to her when she came by to scout some interns provided her with a list of what all students were available. Given how much clout Ryukyu has thanks to her efforts in stopping the monster attack, the people who send the interns out to learn from pros are very much interested in keeping Ryukyu's staff of interns full."

Aizawa arched a wry eyebrow as he looked over at Present Mic. "She can grab up to three interns, so aside from Uraraka and Asui who you already mentioned, is there anyone else that Ryukyu had expressed interest in?"

Hizashi could only smirk a bit in amusement as he regarded his co-worker, pointing at him with his right index finger. "…She's got to be rather fond of your girls, Aizawa, because the third intern that Ryukyu expressed interest in is Sirknight."

"Loukar's foster daughter, eh?" the underground hero remarked. He nodded once while his arms were crossed over his chest. "…Yup. That sounds about right."

"Fat Gum is also interested in grabbing Kirishima again," Hizashi remarked, "And while Fat Gum was a bit sad when informed that Tamaki was unavailable, he lit back up when Sekijiro's girl Itsuka recommended to him that he take Komori with him and Kirishima."

Aizawa and especially Sekijiro perked up a bit in piqued interest when their loud co-worker told them of that bit. "…Kirishima and Komori?" Aizawa remarked in a curious tone, "That seems like an odd pair of interns for Fat Gum to take."

"But you were there with me when we saw those two work perfectly in taking down that one attacking man together," Sekijiro pointed out. Aizawa conceded to Sekijiro's point, nodding twice in agreement.

"There's just one other point that I believe we ought to cover," Nezu said to all of the U.A. staff members present, "What Aizawa's students Bakugo and Todoroki, as well as Sekijiro's student Giratina, said about known members of the League showing up during the attack."

Toshinori let out a resigned sigh, having had a feeling that the talk of the conversation during the meeting would eventually shift from the large group of attacking men to the presence of actual straight up villains on U.A. grounds. "…From what the boys said," Toshinori began, "The trio of villains that were on U.A. grounds during the recent attack are now referring to their group as the Front, whatever that means."

Nemuri nodded once before she spoke up. "We also got it that despite being on U.A. grounds while that group of men stormed the school in their efforts to find and kill Aizawa's student Uraraka, the trio of villains were not part of the attack, and were merely trying to do some recon before making themselves scarce."

"The villain known as Toga killed Raijin Striker, who we gathered led the attack of the large group of men on U.A.," Higari pointed out, "Before he could be captured and interrogated by us heroes. And the villain known as Dabi knocked out Sekijiro's girl Yanagi and carried her around to bait Aizawa's boy Todoroki away from all the fighting, but otherwise did nothing to cause any harm to anyone. Dabi was not even intending to harm Todoroki himself."

"Todoroki, Bakugo and Giratina also all said something about how the group that the villains belongs to draws funding from the same benefactor of the group of men that are aiming to kill Uraraka for whatever reason," Aizawa said, his fingers locked as his elbows rested on the table. The underground hero rested his chin on his locked fingers as he looked around at his fellow U.A. staff members. "This means that there are not only two big groups in play, but there is also a third party in play as well, pulling some strings from behind the scenes."

Toshinori slammed his spot at the meeting table with his fist, using as much effort as he could muster in his weakened form. "This whole mess seems like it stinks of All for One," the former symbol of peace swore vengefully, "But we know full well that there is no way that he could be involved in anything at all right now."

Some of the other U.A. staff members started muttering in something of a panic, but Nezu got all of them to calm down. "Settle down, everyone, settle down." Once the others at the meeting table had calmed down, the quirked animal principal began to speak his piece. "All of the trouble as of late, and some of it from those who do not possess quirks, is all the more reason why we need to push ahead with this emergency round of internships. Not only are we in more of a need than ever for as many heroes as we can muster up, but said heroes need as much experience and tutelage as can be provided to them."

The teachers all agreed with Nezu, and soon the decision was made unanimously for the emergency round of internships to go full steam ahead. Some of the staff members were even glad that notable pro heroes had scouted out the students of Aizawa and Sekijiro for internships, as this meant that the brats would be under not just the best training, but for some of the teens who needed it (like Uraraka), the best protection as well. Despite all of the trouble as of late, things were starting to seem to be on the pickup.

Hopefully, things would remain this way.

END, CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Author's notes;

Well, the attack on U.A. by that group of men aiming to kill Uraraka for the as of yet unknown benefactor was ultimately foiled. Furthermore, Akuma was able to show just how much of a hero he can be when not under the thumb of a principal that cares more for glory and prestige than for actually letting her students be actual heroes. But the presence of Dabi, Toga and Spinner on U.A. grounds, despite none of them being part of the attack, leaves a lot of folks feeling uneasy, especially since the heroes learned that the villains' group and the group trying to kill Uraraka both draw funding from the same benefactor. What this means for the future of the heroes, as well as their non-quirked allies, will be filled out in the times to come.

Anyway, the next chapter will see some of the work done during the emergency round of internships. Granted, it will focus mainly on Endeavor taking Izuku, Todoroki and Bakugo to one of the businesses owned by Yaoyorozu's family because of some threats made against said business, but the reason being is that it will be the setting of a character's in-story debut, given that his dad works at said business and the heroes' visit just so happens to fall on the business's 'take your child to work day'. The character who will be showing up in-story in the next chapter will have a bigger role to play than what a lot of you will expect, so keep an eye out for what he will get up to in the times to come.

Ribbit.


	25. Chapter 25

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter twenty-five: Take your child to work day

Ganma Asui walked through the front door of Yaoyorozu Offices, the business that he had worked for since before his first child Tsuyu was born. The frog-like man held one of the glass doors that made up the double doors leading into the business open so that a ten-year-old boy who was with him could enter; said boy had a cast on his right shin, and he had a crutch under each arm to help him get around.

"Well Samidare, my boy," Ganma remarked with a hint of amusement, "What do you think of your old man's place of work?"

The boy, apparently Ganma's son Samidare, looked around with an unreadable expression of boredom on his face. After a few moment, he turned to look up at his father. "…This isn't school."

Ganma chuckled a bit in amusement. "Well today is take your child to work day here, so I figured that I'd bring you along so you could see me in action."

Samidare just continued to look up at his father. The frog boy tugged the straps of his backpack, a light gray number that had a light blue hexagon-shaped patch on the main pouch of the bag with a white silhouette of a flop-eared bunny in the middle. A plushy resembling the dragon form of the pro hero Ryukyu stuck out of the big pouch of the backpack. Samidare also wore a somewhat baggy t-shirt that had an image of Ryukyu on it, and there was a thirty-two ounce metal water bottle in the one water bottle holster on the side of the backpack, and said bottle had an image of the Dragoon Hero on it.

Samidare, apparently a fan of Ryukyu's, simply looked up at his father once more. "There's no math or science to do here," Samidare said simply.

Once more, Ganma could not help but chuckle in amusement; the frog man was thankful that his son was so studious. The ten-year-old Asui boy was actually quite the wiz in his academic subjects at school, so much so that he was actually rather ahead of his class, learning material that put him on par with well-learned students at some high schools. Some of the girls in Tsuyu's class at U.A. have on occasion sought Samidare out as a tutor because of this, as the boy was, in the words of that Mina Ashido girl, 'totally unlike me and the girls' one classmate who was born with a silver spoon shoved firmly up her ass'.

Ganma realized that things might be a tad boring for his son today, as there was no academic assignments for him to work with. Samidare was a bit restless in getting back to school, even more so since he had just recovered enough to go back after some bullies at school shoved him down some stairs, which resulted in Samidare breaking his right shin, hence the cast on his leg and the crutches he's using to get around.

Right after the Asui men got over the main threshold and into Yaoyorozu Offices, they stopped short when Ganma heard someone call out to him in a familiar voice. "Oh! Aren't you Tsuyu's dad?" Ganma, along with a mildly alarmed Samidare who was caught off guard by the sudden call, turned to see three boys from U.A. walk in, accompanied by the pro hero Endeavor. Right when he saw the current number one hero, Samidare let out a clearly frightened yelp as he went to hide behind his father as quick as his injury would allow.

Ganma, after apologizing for his son being skittish, recognized two of the boys as that Izuku boy (who was the one that called out to him) and that Todoroki boy; their friend with the ashy-blonde hair remained unknown to the frog man. "Oh, you boys are some of my daughter's schoolmates over at U.A.," Ganma remarked. He turned his attention to Endeavor, who stood there next to the boys. "I take it that you and other pros are employing the kids for another round of internships?"

"After all that has happened," Endeavor explained as he gestured to the Asui patriarch, "What with the monster attack and the recent attack by a mysterious group of men on U.A. itself, there has been more of a need than ever to get the next generation of heroes ready for whatever may come their way." The Flame Hero heard the frightened, panicked mewing of the boy he saw run to hide behind the frog man. Endeavor's expression dropped a bit, feeling that he may be the reason for the boy's fright. "I…take it your child isn't exactly my biggest fan in the world."

Ganma let out a sigh, nodded once in confirmation. "…My apologizes, Endeavor. It's just that Samidare here frightens easily."

"What a surprise," Todoroki remarked dryly in an unreadable tone as he crossed his arms over his chest, "My father frightens small children merely by being around." The half-and-half boy turned to regard his pro hero father. "…Seriously. You need to work on your image if small kids run in terror whenever you come around. Parents won't like it if pros frighten their kids."

Endeavor, surprisingly enough, sulked a bit in a defeated manner, sighing in a likewise tone. "I know, Shoto. It's especially important since image is part of what heroes need to consider when they come to help the innocent."

"Oh, that reminds me," Ganma remarked, getting the hero and intern heroes to face him. "Is there a reason why you all are here?"

The ashy-blonde boy Ganma didn't recognize scoffed. "Half-n-half's dad says that we need to meet with the boss here because of something he has to investigate. Half-n-half, Deku and I came along to watch a pro hero in action on a case."

"The Bakugo lad is right," Endeavor said, "We'll need to speak with whoever is running this business here so that we can move on to the next step of our case."

"A secretary can take you to meet with Mr. Hojo," Ganma replied, "He's the business manager here. Mr. Hojo has been running this company since before I was hired on over fifteen years ago." With a bit of an amused smirk on his face, Ganma said, "I heard rumor that Mr. Hojo was personally hired to the position by Ryoga Yaoyorozu himself."

Bakugo's expression lit up a bit out of piqued interest before he turned to face Izuku and Todoroki. "…Oi, ain't that the name of rich girl's daddy?"

Todoroki and Izuku both nodded in confirmation, and the latter was the first to speak up. "Yes, Kacchan, that's the name of Yaoyorozu's father."

"I have actually met Ryoga Yaoyorozu once before," Endeavor said, "Shortly after I had been officially named as the number one pro hero. He had a proposition for me that I turned down as it went against a lot of what I was coming to realize as I was getting used to being the pillar that the people look to for support." Izuku, Todoroki and Bakugo looked curious that Endeavor had actually turned down Japan's richest man for something, but Ganma was particularly shocked.

"You…you turned down an offer that Ryoga Yaoyorozu made you." The shock in the frog man's tone could not be hidden, or mistaken for anything else.

"It conflicted with what I was coming to realize, like I said," Endeavor remarked, "Besides, such an offer, if I did accept it, would have made multiple people rather upset with me." Without even looking, Endeavor jerked a thumb at his youngest child. "Shoto here would have been the most upset with me if I had accepted that offer." The half-and-half boy went a bit wide-eyed when he heard that he was a reason why his father turned down an offer made by Yaoyorozu's father, and he began to wonder just what said offer was.

Ganma nodded a few times as he considered the Flame Hero's words. "Well, I ought to find a secretary to take you up to Mr. Hojo now," Ganma said with a bow of his head. After Ganma walked away, leading a skittish Samidare, Izuku, Todoroki, Bakugo and Endeavor waited for a bit until the Asui men came back, leading a slender, mid-twenties female secretary; she was dressed as one would count on of a woman in the position, and her jet black hime-cut long hair was interrupted only by a pair of snow white horns coming up from her head, similar to the horns Mina had. An obvious sign of a mutation quirk.

After introducing the secretary to the heroes, Ganma said that she could lead them up to the top floor, where Mr. Hojo would be waiting. Endeavor thanked the company employees on behalf of the whole group before he and his interns turned to go up to the top floor with the secretary. After Endeavor and his interns were out of sight, Ganma could hear his son behind him let out a relieved sigh. The frog man turned his head, saw his still-frightened looking son trembling a bit.

Ganma wasn't going to hold Samidare being scared of Endeavor against the boy.

* * *

"You turned down an offer that Mr. Yaoyorozu made you," the secretary remarked as she led Endeavor up to meet with Mr. Hojo. Izuku, Todoroki and Bakugo followed along behind the current number one pro hero as he and the secretary talked. "I'm surprised that anyone would turn down an offer that Mr. Yaoyorozu made. In fact, if you don't mind sharing, what was the offer that you turned down?"

"Ryoga wanted to arrange a marriage between his daughter Momo and my son Shoto."

Izuku and his friends all stopped and let out surprised cries when they heard what Endeavor had just said; Todoroki was the most surprised of all of the boys. The secretary was similarly as shocked, and she asked the Flame Hero for more. "It was just after I was officially recognized as the number one pro hero. Ryoga figured that it would look good for his family or whatever if the Yaoyorozu name was attached to the number one hero in some notable way. Thus, he met with me and offered his daughter's hand in marriage to my son Shoto."

"And…" Shoto spoke up, surprised to have heard all of this just now, "…You turned him down."

Enji turned around to regard his son, shot him a sympathetic look. "…I did not want to put you into a situation where you'd be at risk to do what I did, Shoto. Besides, I figured that both you and that Momo girl in your class ought to make certain choices yourselves, rather than have old idiots like me and Ryoga force the two of you into a union that neither of you agreed to."

The half-and-half boy literally could not believe his ears; his father, who had forced an arranged marriage between himself and Shoto's mother Rei, refused to agree to setting up an arranged marriage between Shoto and his classmate Yaoyorozu. Was the Flame Hero truly trying to become a better person? Seeing the look of surprise on his son's face, Endeavor smirked a bit in amusement before he spoke once more.

"…Besides. I think that I'd prefer to have that Yanagi girl as my daughter-in-law."

All confusion and surprise fled Todoroki as it was replaced with embarrassment. Izuku was also embarrassed for Todoroki's sake, but Bakugo just pointed and laughed at Todoroki. "Holy crap, Half-n-half! Your dad just used your crush on ghost girl in 1-B to tease you!"

"Not now, Bakugo," Todoroki managed to growl at the ashy-haired boy, who nonetheless went on laughing at his classmate, with said laughing doubled when the smirk that Enji had on his face had pretty much confirmed that Bakugo had correctly guessed the truth.

The secretary smiled at the relaxed air that Endeavor and his interns gave off. "I'm glad that you all aren't being uber stiff and formal," the secretary remarked, "We've had pros here before on various cases, but they were always up tight. I guess that comes with the territory when working on a case in one of the many businesses under Ryoga Yaoyorozu's ownership."

Endeavor nodded in agreement with the secretary, but he stopped short when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Looking over, the Flame Hero saw two children, one a girl and the other a boy with blue skin and a pair of white stubby horns growing out of his forehead, talking to one another. Endeavor pointed this out to the secretary and made a comment. "There are a good number of children here, it seems."

"Oh, today is take your child to work day here," the secretary explained, "So a number of employees here brought their kids along. You saw Ganma's son Samidare earlier down on the ground floor, correct?"

"Yes, I saw the boy earlier." Endeavor nodded once, a look of mild regret on his face. "I still cannot believe that I'm so unapproachable for children. Some hero I am."

The secretary gently shook her head. "No need to worry about Samidare, Endeavor," the secretary said, "He just frightens easily is all."

"Oh, I noticed that Samidare had a plushy of Ryukyu's dragon from sticking out of his backpack," Izuku remarked, "I also saw that he wore a Ryukyu shirt, and that he had a metal water bottle with Ryukyu on it."

Turning to regard the green-eyed boy, the secretary nodded a few times in confirmation. "Yes, Ganma has mentioned to me once when I asked about it that the Dragoon Hero is his son's favorite pro hero."

"Boys tend to fan boy over the pro hero men, like Edgeshot or Fat Gum. Hell, I've even heard that Gang Orca is starting to get something of a following in the children," Bakugo remarked, crossing his arms over his chest. The explosive teen gave a gentle shake of his head as he considered what he had just heard. "It's not every day you hear of a boy that kid's age favoring a female pro hero over one who is male."

"We've had enough time to chat," Endeavor declared, "Right not, we need to meet with this Hojo fellow so we can get a grasp on the situation that we're here to investigate." Izuku and the others all nodded in agreement with the current number one pro hero, and proceeded to follow the secretary over to Mr. Hojo's office, to see exactly what it was that they needed to do on their current assignment.

* * *

Samidare was rather bored to be honest. There was no math or science work for him to do, so the ten-year-old boy was getting a bit restless. The only thing that broke up the monotony for him was when he had to get up and go use the restroom. Luckily for him, he remembered passing by one with his father on the way to his father's cubicle so watch him in action at work. With a little bit of difficulty due to his injury, Samidare was able to get up and go to the restroom.

After he did what he had to do and washed his hands afterwards, Samidare left the men's restroom, his backpack with the Ryukyu plushy sticking out of it worn over his back like always. As he hobbled along on his crutches, the sole Asui brother passed by a workroom that the door to which was open. Samidare paused when he heard two men inside say various words and talk about various matters that could only mean one thing.

People were working on math inside.

His interest piqued, Samidare turned to enter the workroom right when the two men that were inside got up and left for a lunch break, with neither men ever seeing Samidare enter. The ten-year-old boy hobbled over on his crutches as he spotted where the work papers laid. He saw the writings of the two men that had left for a lunch break, saw the arithmetic that would make even a high schooler's head spin. But it came as natural as breathing to Samidare. So much so that with only a brief glance, the sole Asui brother said the first thing that was on his mind.

"They did their math wrong."

Without prompting, Samidare proceeded to sit down at the table, gathered up some of the papers, and after taking out a mechanical pencil from his backpack, proceeded to get to work.

* * *

Mr. Renji Hojo was a balding, middle-aged quirkless man who had been in charge of running Yaoyorozu Offices since he was hired personally to the position by Ryoga Yaoyorozu a bit over seventeen years ago. He was dressed as one would expect of a man in his position, too; gray business suit with matching suit pants, a white dress shirt worn under the suit jacket, a black tie around his neck, and black shiny dress shoes. Renji could only remember two times in his entire life when he had paled a bit out of nervousness; one was when he met Ryoga the day that he was hired to run Yaoyorozu Offices, and the other was happening right now as the number one pro hero Endeavor stood in his office.

"…So things have been going that badly, huh?" Enji remarked after he and his interns were given the full story by Hojo.

The manager of Yaoyorozu offices let out a resigned, troubled sigh. "Indeed it is, I'm afraid. This company's been slowly hemorrhaging money for over the last twelve years, even though our earnings should have made that an impossibility. What's more is that we've recently been receiving threats from some villains identifying themselves as members of something called the Paranormal Liberation Front."

"That name sounds familiar to me…" Todoroki remarked as he wore a look of consideration on his face; likewise, Bakugo also looked like he heard the name Paranormal Liberation Front from somewhere before. Izuku was somewhat lost on the subject, but he still gave the notion some thought. It was while the three boys were all thinking that Endeavor turned to regard Hojo to ask him for more details.

"You say that villains have been threatening this company, and that also this company has been losing money for over twelve years running. Does Ryoga know about all of this that is being made against one of his businesses?"

"Oh heavens no," Hojo replied with a furious shake of his head. Calming down, the manager of the company looked to the Flame Hero, to his interns. "If Mr. Yaoyorozu were to learn of how this company is hemorrhaging money and is being threatened by villains, he might be liable to shut it down entirely, putting loads of people out of a job. That is why I sent for a pro hero to look into the matter, to stop the threats we've been receiving from villains, and to-"

Mr. Hojo was cut off when the same secretary from before came dashing into his office, a look of surprise on her face. "Mr. Hojo!" the secretary cried out as she ran in, calming down only so she could catch her breath for a bit. "Sir…" the secretary said after a few gulps of air, "…We may have figured out the reason why there's been so much money hemorrhaging over the past twelve years of this company."

Hojo, as well as Endeavor and the hero interns, all turned to face the secretary. Endeavor had a look of amusement on his face. "Well alright! It looks like we're one step closer to saving this company from being shut down!" Gesturing to the secretary, the Flame Hero remarked, "Who is it that discovered the money hemorrhaging?" The look of disbelief on the secretary's face couldn't be mistaken for anything else.

"…None of you will believe me when I say this, but it was actually Ganma Asui's son who had made the discovery."

* * *

As it turned out, the two men that had been working in the room that Samidare stumbled upon were the men responsible for managing all of the company's accounting, budgeting and all other arithmetic related to the company's money. And as it also turned out, the two men had been fudging numbers ever since they were hired on over twelve years ago. There was no way to tell for sure where the money that wasn't accounted for was going, but Endeavor had reason to believe that the two accountants were in some way connected to the villains that were currently threatening Yaoyorozu Offices.

What still surprised a lot of the people working at Yaoyorozu Offices was who it was that had discovered that the accountants had been fudging the numbers and funneling the unaccounted for money to some technically as of yet unknown cause. A few of the office workers, when they had a break, swung by the meeting room where some other accountants that were personally trusted by Mr. Hojo were working with Samidare Asui, the ten-year-old math genius whose arithmetic was vouched for by Mr. Hojo's trusted accountants.

Since the Flame Hero knew he couldn't go in without sending the sole Asui brother into a panic, Endeavor sent his interns in to ask Samidare for him how it was that he found the errors in the previous accountants' math. To the surprise of Izuku, Todoroki and Bakugo, Samidare's answer was both uncomplicated and hard for them to wrap their heads around all at once.

"The numbers told me."

Endeavor stood near a group of cubicles on that floor as he talked with his interns outside of the room where the trusted accountants and Samidare were working on going through _all_ of the accounting records that had been made ever since the questionable accountants had started working at Yaoyorozu Offices over twelve years ago. The Flame Hero was unsure of what to make of Samidare's answer, which Izuku repeated to Endeavor word for word.

"That is literally what Tsuyu's little brother said to me, Todoroki and Kacchan, sir." The green-eyed teen nodded once in confirmation as he, Todoroki and Bakugo reported back to the current number one pro hero. The look of seriousness in Izuku's eyes assured Endeavor that All Might's protégé was telling him the truth.

Bakugo, with an amused-sounding huff, put his left hand on his hip as he gestured to Shoto's father with his right hand. "I had no idea that Frog Face has such a badass younger sibling," the explosive teen remarked with an amused smirk, "Unless you're in the picture, nothing can shake that little dude. It's like he's got balls of steel or something."

Although he was still disheartened to hear that he was still an intimidating presence to young kids, Endeavor was overall more surprised by the fact that some random elementary school-aged child might very well end up being the sole reason that Yaoyorozu Offices will be able to avoid going under financially speaking. The Flame Hero has heard of one or two cases where there was some manner of child genius, but this was by far one of the more ridiculous examples. All of the surprise that Endeavor felt was further strengthened by a combination of Izuku telling him of the boy's answer to how he knew the questionable accountants did their math wrong, and the honest, sincere praise that Bakugo was giving to Samidare.

_Bakugo_. Giving honest, sincere praise to someone.

If what Shoto had been telling him of the explosive teen was true, then Endeavor had reason to believe that this was nothing short of a one-in-a-million miracle.

"There's still a rather pertinent matter in this case that we have to tackle," Endeavor remarked as he faced his three interns and Mr. Hojo. Turning to face the manager of Yaoyorozu Offices, Enji said, "What happened to those two accountants that been fudging the numbers? We need to track them down and take them in for questioning." The current number one crossed his arms over his chest, letting out an unamused snort through his nose. "I would be hearing of where it is exactly that they had been funneling all of the money that wasn't accounted for, although I do have one or two theories on that."

Mr. Hojo, for the first time since Endeavor or any of the Flame Hero's interns could remember, had a look of resigned disappointment on his face. "…I would also like to be hearing their reason for why they had betrayed this company's trust, and had been doing so ever since they had begun working here over twelve years ago. I'd likewise also like to know just where it was exactly that they had been funneling all of the unaccounted for money to. Such blatant cooperate espionage, as well as such blatant theft, just cannot be forgiven."

As the company manager talked to the hero and the heroes-in-training, the same secretary from before came dashing over, leading Ganma behind her. "Sir, I brought Ganma Asui like you asked," the secretary said to Mr. Hojo, gesturing for the frog man to step forward.

The look on Mr. Hojo's face lit up a bit, a sign that his mood was lifting just a little. "Ah, about time you got here, Ganma." Mr. Hojo let out a bit of an amused chuckle as he reached forward and gave Ganma a solid pat on his right shoulder. "I'm not sure what it is that you and your wife do to raise your children, but whatever it is, you better keep it up."

Ganma's confused expression was a sign that he was still lost on what exactly was going on. "I was told that my son just did something really big to help the company?" It was less a statement and more of a confused inquiry that was sounding like it wanted confirmation.

Mr. Hojo gave a single nod of confirmation. "Indeed he did, Ganma," the manager replied, "Look, I'm going to be honest with you here. This company was at a fair chance of going under since we were hemorrhaging money, and we were unable to figure out why. This would have put everyone that's working here, both you and me included, at risk of being out of a job if it had gone on for much longer." The look of mild shock that crossed the frog man's face told Mr. Hojo that he had his employee's attention. Gesturing to the room where the trusted accountants and Samidare were working on going through all the records, the manager gave a reassuring chuckle.

"But that risk is all gone now." The look of amusement on Mr. Hojo's face couldn't be hidden, nor could it be mistaken for anything else. "And we have your boy to thank."

"Are you saying that Samidare saved the company?" Ganma asked, unable to hide his surprise.

The company manager nodded twice in the affirmative, right before Izuku spoke up. "From what Todoroki, Kacchan and I were able to gather, your son is some sort of high end math whiz. He spotted some discrepancies in the work of the questionable accountants, and just spotting the errors in the work compelled him to act to correct all of it." The green-haired cinnamon roll then shook his head, a sign that he was still having a bit of trouble believing everything. "Long story short, yes. Samidare is the reason why this company will be able to avoid going under." With a look of amusement on his face, Izuku added, "I guess this means that you owe him big time, since he is the reason why you won't potentially lose your job here."

The frog man let out an amused chuckle; it carried a hint of sounding both surprised by Samidare and not being surprised by his only son all at once. "Heh, yeah, I guess I do owe him big time. I bet that Beru, Tsuyu and Satsuki will surprised as well when I tell them how Samidare had saved me from potentially losing my job."

"Make sure you encourage your son to continue his studies," Endeavor instructed Ganma, "A talent like that doesn't pop up every day." The frog man nodded once in understanding agreement before Endeavor turned to face Mr. Hojo. "Now, back to the subject of those two accountant that had been fudging the numbers for the past twelve years or so."

"I assume you want their names, and maybe pictures of them?" The current number one pro hero nodded once in the affirmative to the company manager's question. Mr. Hojo nodded once in understanding as he turned to head back to his office. "If you'll come with me, I can get you their names, as well as pull up images of what they look like so you and your interns here know who to look for." Thankful for this boon in the efforts to resolve the case, Endeavor gestured for his interns to follow him and Mr. Hojo over to the latter's office.

* * *

"Damn it, why did the two of you leave that room you were working in unguarded and open to whoever may wander on by?" The two questionable accountants, now wearing outfits at home on shady members of society, were being given a bit of a mild chewing out by Mr. Compress, one of the leading members of the Paranormal Liberation Front. The dapperly dressed villain pointed at the two questionable accountants with the index finger of his prosthetic arm, with his real hand holding his cane.

"You two, who had worked for the League of Villains as spies since before we absorbed the Meta Liberation Army and became the Paranormal Liberation Front, have never slipped up before now," Mr. Compress scolded, "But because of your first-ever slip up today, we are now out of one of our primary sources of income. Us quirked villains from the League's Vanguard Action Squad are now going to have to do more jobs from the mutual benefactor that funnels funds to both our cause and the group that's working to send that upstart construction company owned by the Urarakas a certain kind of message on his behalf." Mr. Compress crossed his arms, one of them prosthetic and the other real, over his chest. "Shigaraki will not be amused."

"Well how were we supposed to know that one of the kids that was brought in because today was take your child to work day at Yaoyorozu Offices would wander in and ruin twelve years' worth of our work?" the first of the questionable accountants, who turned out to have been working for the villains since before the advent of the Front, replied in complaint, "Not to mention how said kid that ruined out work knew the math well enough to tell we were fudging the numbers so that whatever money we didn't report could be funneled to the Front?"

The second villain spy nodded in agreement with the first. "All the kids that were brought in today were late elementary school at the oldest, so we couldn't have been expected to predict that any of them would know the material well enough to foil all of our efforts."

Mr. Compress held the tips of his real hand to his forehead, a sort of face palm gesture, as he let out a resigned sigh. "It doesn't matter in the end, I suppose." Looking to the two villain spies, the dapperly dressed villain said, "Either way, we're going to have to make our escape from here lest we all get caught by-"

"Halt, villain!" Mr. Compress was cut off by the sudden shout, a shout that made him and the two villain spies jump a bit in their skin. Turning to face the direction that the shout had come from, Mr. Compress and the villain spies saw the pro hero Endeavor, accompanied by a trio of heroes-in-training, come charging right at them.

To Mr. Compress's piqued interest and mild amusement, one of Endeavor's interns was the Bakugo boy that Shigaraki had expressed interest in once, having arranged such a huge plan to kidnap the explosive teen and try to sway him to the side of villainy. Similarly, Bakugo also saw Mr. Compress and instantly grew pissed. "You're that dumb-looking bastard magician jerk that turned me into a marble so you and your butt-fuck buddies can try to make me join you!" snarled the explosive teen, sounding a bit like he wanted revenge.

Not wanting to tango with the heroes, Mr. Compress leapt up backwards with notable skill, landing on the edge of the roof of the building behind him. He then jumped to his right by about a meter to avoid a stream of fire from Endeavor, all of this while the three interns were relegated to the duty of wrangling the villain spies, both of whom had generic enhancing quirks; the first one had strength and the other had speed.

Mr. Compress, with the index finger and thumb of his prosthetic hand, pinched the brim of his top hat to lift it up in a gesture of salute. "I would so love to stay and chat, but I'm afraid that I need to get going." Placing his hat back down on his head, the dapperly dressed villain called out to the villain spies, "Do try to meet up with me later at the usual place, provided that either of you manages to get yourselves out of this sticky situation!" Turning around, Mr. Compress leapt away, avoiding potential capture altogether.

Endeavor, when he saw the notable villain get away, scoffed in annoyance. Endeavor then heard his interns cry out in surprise; turning around, the Flame Hero saw that the villain spies had picked up a few garbage cans and threw them around, distracting Izuku, Todoroki and Bakugo enough to give them some cover to try and make a break for it. The two villain spies both ended up getting away, mostly because Endeavor couldn't risk attacking them without causing a lot of collateral damage in the alleyway.

* * *

Back at Endeavor's agency later that afternoon, Izuku, Todoroki and Bakugo stood in front of Endeavor's desk in his office, as which the Flame Hero himself sat at. Enji, despite how he had some disappointment that none of the three villains from today were captured, wasn't quite going to hold it against his interns. "…Everything aside, we did technically complete the case, as all we were asked to do was investigate both the money hemorrhaging and the villain threats that were made to Yaoyorozu offices," Endeavor told his interns, "As such, we will be getting paid for it."

"We still could have tried to capture at least one of those villain bastards," Bakugo huffed, clearly annoyed that all three of the villains from today's incident had all successfully escaped capture by him and the others.

Endeavor held up a hand to cut off all further argument from Bakugo, as well as Izuku and Todoroki. "None of us could have stopped them from escaping without causing some collateral damage to the alleyway. Additionally, Mr. Hojo and a few of his employees did follow us to see what was going on." Giving his interns a knowing look, the Flame Hero went on, "I don't need to tell you what that means if we did act to capture even one of the villains by whatever means we had at our disposal, consequences be damned."

"We would have harmed innocent civilians in the process." Endeavor nodded once in confirmation and approval to Izuku's statement, glad that All Might's protégé had caught on quicker than the Bakugo boy.

"Like I was saying," Endeavor said as he wrapped things up with his interns, "We did complete all the tasks our case technically had today, so all things considered I believe you boys ought to take it as a victory." Endeavor then made the 'shoo' gesture with his right hand towards the boys, a signal that they were dismissed. "We'll tackle another case tomorrow if one crops up. Until then, be at ease."

…

"Wow Todoroki," Izuku said as he, Todoroki and Bakugo walked through the halls of the Endeavor Hero Agency, "Your father was a lot more relaxed than what we saw the last time we interned under him."

The dual natured-quirk boy nodded in agreement with his green-eyed friend. "I will admit that not even I was expecting my father to soften up as much as we had observed today." A bit of embarrassed blushing appeared on Todoroki's face as he gave a very mild scowl. "…Like how my father used my crush on Reiko to tease me."

Bakugo let out a chuckle upon hearing Todoroki's remark. "Heh, yeah, your dad's starting to get a sense of humor, Half-n-half." The three heroes-in-training turned a corner to enter a main lobby on the floor that they were on. When they did, Izuku, Todoroki and Bakugo were surprised to see that, standing at a reception counter talking to the receptionist there, were the pro heroes Fat Gum and Ryukyu.

Additionally, Izuku, Todoroki and Bakugo saw Kirishima and Kinoko, both in their respective current hero outfits, standing off to the side as they kept an eye on the villain spy from earlier that had the generic strength quirk. Likewise, Uraraka, Tsuyu and Eunice (Uraraka and Tsuyu wore their hero costumes but Eunice wore her casual outfit) were standing off to the side as they kept an eye on the villain spy that had the generic speed quirk. Both of the villain spies had cuffs and bindings on them that suppressed their quirks.

"Oi, Stupid Hair!" Bakugo called out as he, Izuku and Todoroki walked over to where Kirishima was standing with Kinoko, catching the red haired hardening quirk boy's attention. Seeing the boys walk over to Kirishima and Kinoko, Uraraka and her group walked over as well, leading the prisoner that they were keeping an eye on. Gesturing to the two villain spies that his fellow heroes-in-training had bound and captured, Bakugo let out an amused smirk. "Deku, Half-n-half and I were tangoing with these jokers earlier while Half-n-half's dad fought that magician jerk who kidnapped me that one time."

"Yeah, Fat Gum, Kinoko and I ran into this one here while we were on a regular patrol." Kirishima gave the generic strength quirk villain spy a pat on the back. "We caught him, and when Fat Gum learned that this one here was connected to the case that you guys were doing with Todoroki's dad, he figured to bring him here in case there was anything that Endeavor could gleam from him to help learn more on the case."

"That's rather similar to how Uraraka, Eunice and I assisted Ryukyu when we ran into this speed quirk fellow here," Tsuyu said as she pointed to the villain that she and the girls were keeping an eye on, "Ryukyu learned soon after this one's capture that he's connected to the case you guys were all investigating over at the office building where my dad works, so she figured to bring him here so that Todoroki's dad could get some information out of him that's relevant to the case that you guys did kero."

Izuku, Todoroki and Bakugo all nodded in understanding as some of the sidekicks employed by the Endeavor Hero Agency came in to collect the captured villain spies. Some police officers soon entered the agency itself, and expressed thanks and relief that quirked criminals of so high a level of importance to the ongoing struggle to take down the Front once and for all had been taken in by the heroes.

…

The eight heroes-in-training watched as the two villain spies were loaded into an armored police vehicle. The interns were ordered by the heroes to which they were assigned to remain at the Endeavor Hero Agency, as Endeavor, Fat Gum and Ryukyu were needed by the police to help with handling the villain spies, and also assist in interrogation if need be. "Oh, Tsuyu, before I forget," Izuku spoke up, getting the other heroes-in-training to turn to face him.

The frog girl's focus was firmly on Izuku, as was everyone else's. "What's up, Midoriya?"

"There was some sort of take your child to work day thing at the company where your dad works, and he had your little brother with him," Izuku explained, drawing a mildly surprised look out of Tsuyu.

Todoroki and Bakugo both nodded in confirmation, with the latter even smirking a bit in amusement. "Yeah, Frog Face, that little brother of yours is surprisingly awesome. He's the one that discovered why the company was hemorrhaging money for so long, not to mention how he helped some accountants that were trusted to go over a lot of past records to try and figure out all of the discrepancies." Bakugo gently shook his head as he let out a chuckle. "That kid's badass, that little brother of yours."

Even her usual unreadable face couldn't hide Tsuyu's surprise. Similarly, Uraraka and all of the other heroes-in-training were surprised to hear that an elementary school-aged boy was the reason why the money hemorrhaging of Yaoyorozu Offices was discovered, and that led to the discovery of the villain spies that were responsible. "Really?" Tsuyu replied as she did her finger tic thing, her tone showing surprise, "Samidare did all of that?"

"He's got a way with working math and numbers," Todoroki remarked, drawing everyone's attention to himself. "I saw some of that accounting work, and I doubt that any of us in 1-A and 1-B aside from the absolute smartest among us could begin to wrap our heads around it. And yet such math seemed to come to your younger brother as natural as breathing." Looking at his frog-like classmate, Todoroki said, "Your younger brother is one of those child geniuses I hear about occasionally, isn't he?"

Tsuyu, with a look of consideration on her face, simply replied, "Math just so happens to be Samidare's field of specialty."

"I also saw that he had a Ryukyu t-shirt on," Izuku remarked, "And that he had a Ryukyu water bottle in the one bottle holster on his backpack, and he had a plushy of Ryukyu in her dragon form sticking out of his backpack." With a bit of a curious look on his face, the green-eyed boy said, "I take it Samidare is a fan of Ryukyu's?"

Tsuyu nodded once in confirmation. "Yes, Samidare is a fan of Ryukyu kero." Turning to face everyone in the group as a whole, Tsuyu remarked, "Remember when we did a tour of all of our rooms at Heights Alliance, and we saw all of the All Might-themed décor that Midoriya had in his dorm room?" As everyone aside from Kinoko and Eunice nodded in the affirmative, Izuku winced a bit in embarrassment. "Well, Samidare is pretty much the same, but whereas Midoriya has All Might merch, Samidare has Ryukyu merch."

"Aww, well ain't that sweet of the kid," Kirishima remarked, amused by a young child showing such support for the Dragoon Hero.

Tsuyu nodded once in agreement. "I guess it does make sense that Samidare likes Ryukyu so much, now that I think about it." Tsuyu then gently shook her head. "But that's getting off the point." Turning to face Izuku and the others, Tsuyu asked, "Midoriya, how did things go for you, Todoroki and Bakugo while you guys were interning under Endeavor kero?"

"Heh," Izuku laughed a bit, "Hoo boy, don't Todoroki, Kacchan and I have some stories for all of you guys."

END, CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Author's notes;

I'll be making more use of Tsuyu's family members in the chapters to come. Samidare in particular, given the role that he will be playing later on down the line. But that's far off in the future. Anyway, this is the last chapter of the 'Monster War arc', for those who wanted to know; the next chapter of this story will be the first chapter of what I'm calling the 'Extra arc'; this arc won't have an overarching storyline shared between its chapters unlike what the first three arcs had, as they well basically be a collection of one-off adventures. However, said adventures will still be playing a notable role in the story as a whole nonetheless.

Especially with what all I have planned in the next chapter.


	26. Chapter 26

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter twenty-six: Detective Mina is on the case!

The girls of U.A. High School's class 1-A were hanging out in the common area of the Heights Alliance dorm building located on U.A. grounds one well enough afternoon after classes were all done for the day. The girls of Shota Aizawa's homeroom class were talking about a number of topics, one of which being the recently completed emergency round of internships that were done as part of the HPSC's decision to go ahead with trying to increase the number of available heroes on deck, pro, in-training or otherwise, in response to a number of recent events.

"So Uraraka, Tsuyu, Eunice," Yaoyorozu began as she turned her attention to the three girls she was addressing. She waited to continue until all three of them had turned to face her. "I heard from some of the boys that you all interned under Ryukyu again during the emergency round of internships, although for Eunice it was her first time working under Ryukyu."

Uraraka and Tsuyu both nodded once in confirmation, although Eunice just continued to look at her wealthy classmate. Uraraka gestured to Yaoyorozu before she began to speak. "Yeah, she was a bit upset that Nejire-sempai wasn't available." The gravity girl gave a modest shrug. "I think she just wanted to have all three of us together again."

"Anything interesting happen while you three were interning under her?" Kyoka asked as she and some of the other girls, like Sakaki and Hatsume, leaned a bit closer to the three interns of the Dragoon Hero.

"Oh yes." Tsuyu nodded once before she proceeded to explain. "While the three of us were on patrol with Ryukyu, we ran into some fellow with a generic speed quirk. Judging by how he was dressed as well as some people shouting that he had run from a fight that involved a villain, we were led by Ryukyu in subduing and apprehending the shady character kero." The frog girl gestured over to Eunice before adding, "Eunice's quirk made capturing the man a breeze, so she deserves a lot of the credit."

The green-haired girl gave a bit of a scared yelp as she scrunched up, seemingly embarrassed that people wanted to say that she did a good job. Some of the other girls were a bit amused by how modest Eunice was being, and Mina assured her that there was nothing wrong with receiving credit that was rightfully earned. Eunice relaxed a bit, allowing the noise-canceling headphones she wore around her neck to slide back down along her collar bone.

After Eunice relaxed, Uraraka and Tsuyu both turned to face Yaoyorozu, with Uraraka taking the initiative to ask her about her time during the emergency round of internships. "So Yaoyorozu, how were things for you? I heard that you and Itsuka were employed again under the same pro hero, just like when you both worked under Uwabami."

"Yes, but this time Itsuka and I worked for Edgeshot instead of Uwabami," the rich girl explained. She crossed her arms over her chest, a look of curious contemplation on her face, as she thought about the matter. "…As it turns out, Uwabami got into a bit of hot water with some of the other pro heroes due to what she did while Itsuka and I were working for her as interns, given the only hero-related thing we did under her was one patrol, and only then it was because Itsuka and I had more or less complained about doing absolutely nothing hero-related."

"Oh, I remember seeing that commercial that the two of you did with her," Hagakure remarked, "You both looked really pretty."

Yaoyorozu blushed a bit at the sincere praise from her invisible classmate. "…Yes, well, as nice of a job as Itsuka and I did staring in background bits in Uwabami's commercial, given that said commercial work took up well over ninety-five percent of the time that Itsuka and I had with her for our internship under her, some of the other pro heroes were a mite upset with her." A look of concern flashed across Yaoyorozu's face. "I even heard that Uwabami might even be blacklisted from getting to employ students from hero high schools as interns for a while because of it."

"Hey Uraraka, Tsuyu, Eunice, there's something that I want to know," Mina began, getting the three girls she spoke to all to turn and face her. "What did you three and Ryukyu do with the guy that you captured?"

"Oh, Ryukyu learned that the generic speed quirk guy was connected to the case that Izuku, Todoroki and Bakugo were doing with Todoroki's dad," Uraraka explained, "Said case happened at one of the many businesses that Yaoyorozu's dad owns."

The rich girl nodded once in confirmation, showing that she knew what the gravity girl was talking about. "Yes, Itsuka and I picked up a bit of info on that while we assisted Edgeshot with getting some bank robbers we stopped and captured loaded into the back of an armored police van." Yaoyorozu gestured to all of the other girls, to get their attention. "Two low-level villains that were affiliated with the League of Villains for quite some time had been working as accountants at my father's business in question. They were fudging numbers for quite some time, and all money that they didn't report was being secretly funneled to the cause of the villains. The boys and Endeavor even caught those two undercover villains talking to a notable villain known as Mr. Compress."

"I know the rest kero," Tsuyu remarked, "The three villains all escaped, but the girls and I ran into and caught the generic speed quirk guy, while his generic strength quirk fellow ran into and was captured by Kirishima and Kinoko while they were-"

The frog girl was cut off midsentence when Yaoyorozu and Hagakure both waived their hands in front of themselves in a gesture signaling for Tsuyu to stop. She saw this and, after thinking about it for a moment, quickly put two and two together. "…Fat Gum ended up bringing the guy he caught with his interns over to the Endeavor agency, similar to what Ryukyu did with the guy that the lot of us captured." Tsuyu's tone had a noticeable hint of knowing dryness to it, dryness that suggested that she was a bit unamused.

Uraraka also noticed the odd behavior of Yaoyorozu and Hagakure, and she herself put two and two together. The gravity girl let out a resigned sigh as she reached forward to grab a can of soda from the spread that the girls all had on the coffee table. "Yaoyorozu, Hagakure, the two of you are irrationally afraid of Kinoko. She is not, as the both of you have put it more than once, 'going to finish the job'."

Uraraka grabbed a can of Moonberry Cola, the glint of a bulky men's class ring on her right index finger shining a bit when she grabbed the soda can. The ring was gold, and set with a red stone. Yaoyorozu noticed this, and was surprised that Uraraka, known to be from a lower income family even with the boost they have received as of late thanks to the commercial that everyone did to help Uraraka's parents draw attention to their construction company, owned such a ring. The gravity girl leaned back in her seat once she had her drink in hand. "The two of you really need to cut that poor girl a break."

"Hey Uraraka, where did that come from?" Yaoyorozu asked, pointing to the ring that Uraraka had on. Uraraka took a second to connect the rich girl's line of sight, realized that she was asking about the ring that she (Uraraka) wore. The once poor girl gave a bit of a resigned smile as she began to explain the story behind her ring.

"This is a men's class ring that used to belong to my late grandfather from my father's side of the family. It's literally the only thing of his that I have." Uraraka sat her Moonberry Cola down on the coffee table before she covered her right hand with her left, concealing the men's class ring on her right index finger. "It…it means a lot to me, so I am by no means ever going to part with it under any circumstances. Even when my family still struggled a lot, and pawning this would have brought in a fair bit of money, I still wouldn't have done so."

The other girls that were with Uraraka all smiled a bit in understanding, appreciating that their gravity controlling friend cared so much for the legacy of her late paternal grandfather. Mina even reached over with her left arm and drew Uraraka into a hug. "Ah, come here, you." The pink-skinned girl gave a fairly squeezing hug to Uraraka. "Who would have guessed it that you were such a sweetheart to your family?"

With the exception of Eunice who seemed a tad uncomfortable with the prospect of physical contact with others, all of the 1-A girls joined in a group hug that saw Uraraka in the middle. She had no idea what to say to all of the sympathy that her fellow female students were showing her, so she instead merely blushed a bit in embarrassment.

* * *

The following day at U.A., the girls of 1-A and 1-B were all in one of the tennis courts located on U.A. school grounds. With Sekijiro acting as coach for the girls while Aizawa acted as coach for the boys of 1-A and 1-B in the tennis court located right next to the one the girls were all in, it was decided that some physical entertainment in the form of playing tennis was necessary to help with de-stressing the students, who had fought in a monster attack on the city, had to fight a large group of men that attacked U.A. during a recent school festival, and had just gotten back from an emergency round of internships. The reason why they were playing tennis is because it was Nezu's idea (he likes tennis, and wanted to extend his joy for the game to others).

"Well on the plus side," Hagakure began as she stood next to Mina on their team, "Since none of the boys from either 1-A or 1-B are in this court, that means that we don't have to deal with Mineta trying to sneak a look up any of our skirts."

Mina nodded in agreement, happy that she, as well as all of the other girls, were away from the infamous pervert. Mina's nodding was interrupted by Yaoyorozu, who spoke up on her right while Hagakure was on her (Mina's) left. "But on the negative side, we're here in the same court as all of the girls from 1-B, which unfortunately included that creep Komori." The sweatband around Hagakure's invisible head went up and down, a sign that Hagakure was agreeing with her wealthy classmate.

The pink-skinned girl let out a resigned, mildly exasperated sigh. "Girls, for the last time, Kinoko is not aiming to finish you two, Tokoyami and Aoyama off. Can't the two of you get-"

"AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Mina was cut off midsentence when she, as well as all the girls and Sekijiro, all heard that pained scream coming from the tennis court where the boys and Aizawa were at. Said scream, which sounded like it came from Mineta, was followed by a number of boys all laughing hysterically. The girls and Sekijiro all turned around to look to see what happened, and what they saw was the infamous pervert of 1-A, on his knees and the left side of his face with his butt sticking up in the air, covering his holy land with both hands.

"Hey, Aizawa!" Sekijiro barked, prompting the underground hero to turn to face his co-worker. Aizawa walked over to the tall fence wall that separated the two tennis courts so he could be within talking distance of Sekijiro. "What the hell happened?"

"When Kaminari hit a tennis ball with his racket, the tennis ball ended up bouncing off of the ground and in a direction that made it fly right into Mineta's testicles pretty damn hard." Aizawa stepped to the side so that Sekijiro could see the downed Mineta, as well as some of the boys that were in 1-A and 1-B point and laugh at Mineta's suffering, with Bakugo being the most prime example; Dark Shadow even came out of Tokoyami just to point and laugh at Mineta, even though Tokoyami himself wasn't part of mocking the short-statured teen. Turning his attention back to Sekijiro, Aizawa went on in an indifferent tone, "It was a clear cut accident, so I'm not going to scold Kaminari over it other than to gently remind him to be more careful next time with his aim."

"Why scold Kaminari period, Aizawa-sensei?" Both the homeroom teachers for 1-A and 1-B turned to see Kyoka, accompanied by Mina, Itsuka and Kinoko, walk over to talk to the teachers, with Kyoka being the one that had spoken. "This is Mineta we're talking about. Chances are that the pervert had it coming." Mina and Itsuka nodded in agreement, but Kinoko was distracted by something that she was looking at over in the tennis court that the boys were in.

The underground hero let out a mildly resigned sigh in response. "…Given Mineta's history, I can't honestly blame you girls for holding your schoolmate in such contempt. But could you all at least _try_ to show him some compassion, at least when we have visitors to the school and we don't want said visitors to see any of you showing a lack of empathy to your fellow students?" The girls, again aside from the distracted Kinoko, all nodded in agreement. Aizawa noticed that the mushroom girl was distracted, so he tried getting her attention. "Can you at least agree to show Mineta some tolerance during certain events, Komori?"

"…Beautiful crimson spikes…" the mushroom girl muttered to herself in a distracted tone.

"Komori!" Kinoko was startled by Aizawa's snapping to get her to attention. When she turned to face the underground hero, he said, "Can you agree to tolerate Mineta when the other teachers and I need you to?"

Kinoko, looking a bit flustered, blushed a bit due to being caught so unawares. "Oh, umm, yes, I can do that no problem."

Aizawa accepted Kinoko's answer as good enough before he crossed his arms over his chest, letting out a resigned breath. "Unfortunately, we're going to have to end the tennis playing here early, due to Mineta's injury." Aizawa turned his attention to Sekijiro, who nodded in agreement before he turned around to have all the girls head back in to change out of the PE uniforms and back into regular school uniforms. The girls were a bit annoyed, and some outright complained that they had to stop just for Mineta.

* * *

Inside of the girls' locker room which Nemuri was supervising, the girls were all wearing their uniforms aside from their blazer jackets by the time they had started putting stuff away in their lockers. Mina was telling the other girls about how Sero had somehow managed to record a video clip of Kaminari hitting the tennis ball with his racket and sending that tennis ball right into Mineta's hidden treasure, and that Sero sent copies of the video clip to Mina herself as well as everyone else in the Baku-squad.

"Don't worry girls," Mina said with an amused smirk, "I'll show it to all of you later today during lunch, which by the way I heard that Lunch Rush is planning to-"

"Where is it?" the pink-skinned girl stopped midsentence when she and some of the other girls heard Uraraka ask where something was aloud, her tone in something of a panic. Turning around to see, Mina, as well as Kyoka, Pony and Reiko, all saw the gravity girl search her locker for some manner of object of hers. "Where is it?" Uraraka said aloud again, sounding like she was about to go into something of a panic.

Mina, concerned for her classmate and friend, turned to properly face her before she asked, "Hey Uraraka, what's going on?"

Temporarily, Uraraka turned back around to face her schoolmates. The gravity girl's expression dropped a bit, a clear sign that she was troubled. "…My late grandfather's class ring. I took it off and put it in my locker before we went out to the tennis courts, but it's no longer in there."

"Your special ring is missing?" Kyoka asked in a concerned tone, alarmed to hear that something that had such important sentimental value to Uraraka was now missing in action.

Seeing the worried look on Uraraka's face, Mina felt herself suddenly filled with determination. With a fire burning within her, the pink-skinned girl said, "Don't you worry, girl!" Uraraka, as well as Kyoka, Pony and Reiko, all turned to look at the pink-skinned girl. "Your special ring will be found in next to flat! Do you want to know why?" Pointing straight up to the ceiling in the locker room, Mina declared her answer.

"Because I, the great Detective Mina, am on the case!"

* * *

Later that day after classes were done for the day, the girls of class 1-A were all gathered in the common area of Heights Alliance. Mina, curiously enough, was dressed up in a costume that made one think of classic detectives from late 1800s England; she even had a classic smoking pipe, albeit a toy one that was bright pink and had a yellow mouthpiece, also it blew bubbles although it had no bubble formula in it right now. The 1-A girls all looked at their classmate with looks of mild confusion.

Mina pretended to take a drag from her toy smoking pipe, pretended to let out a puff of smoke, then turned to face her fellow girls. "Now then. I suppose you all are wondering why I had called all of you here today."

"You're…investigating the case of Uraraka's missing ring kero?" Mina nodded once in confirmation to Tsuyu's mildly confused question, confusion that stemmed from the whole getup that Mina had going on at the moment.

Mina paced back and forth in front of the group of other 1-A girls as she explained to them what was on her mind. "You see, given how careful our classmate Uraraka is, especially with things that are of notable value, there is no way she would have misplaced the ring. Therefore, there is only one possible explanation for what had happened." Mina stopped mid-pace, standing there in silence in front of the other girls.

Suddenly, Mina spun around before pointing her toy pipe's mouthpiece at the girls. "There is a thief among our number, and said thief stole Uraraka's special ring!" This made the 1-A girls all gasp in shock while Mina calmly put the mouthpiece of her toy pipe in her mouth, and once more pretended to take a drag from it before pretending to blow another puff into the air. After that, she gave the group of girls a serious look.

"Now then," Mina began, "We all know for a fact, due to how tightly Nemuri-sensei runs who goes in and out of the locker rooms, that the theoretical thief has to be a girl, as the theft took place in the girls' locker room. Additionally, the only girls that had used the girls' locker room in that timeframe are all of us in 1-A, all of the girls in 1-B, and Nemuri-sensei herself. As a final point, Nemuri-sensei has no idea about the ring, so she's eliminated as a suspect."

Yaoyorozu, with a curious look on her face, raised a hand. "Wouldn't that also eliminate all of the girls in 1-B as suspects as well, given that they weren't there when Uraraka explained why her ring meant so much to her?"

"Actually," Uraraka began, "I also told the story to all of the girls in 1-B when Mina, Tsuyu, Habuko and I ran into all seven of them in the library earlier this morning before first period." The gravity girl had the decency to look a bit embarrassed. "…So they all know, too."

"Thus they are all suspect," Mina declared, "But don't worry. I got some of the boys looking into the matter for me."

…

"Hmm, I don't see any sort of ring that looks like it could be Round Face's ring if what Mina told me about what it looks like is correct," Bakugo said aloud but mostly to himself as he, with Izuku and Todoroki, were all searching Kinoko's dorm room. Bakugo was searching by himself, ignorant to all of the Kirishima merchandise that was in the mushroom girl's dorm room; it was very much similar to how Izuku had a lot of All Might merch in his dorm room.

Unlike their explosive classmate, Izuku and Todoroki were _not_ ignorant to the fact that Kinoko had apparently ordered one of each item from the Kirishima merchandise section of the Fat Gum agency merchandise catalogue. Bakguo, in his somewhat distracted searching, found a keepsake box that blatantly had an image of Kirishima's face on it, but it was as if it didn't even phase the explosive teen as he opened the keepsake box to look through it.

While Bakguo was searching, Itsuka, who stood with an embarrassed Kinoko behind her, got the attention of the surprised Izuku and Todoroki. "Do not mention this…" the class 1-B rep said to the two boys, her tone mildly threatening, "…To _anyone_." Both Izuku and Todoroki nodded in agreement while Bakugo, who had still yet to realize that there was a whole bunch of Kirishima merchandise all over Kinoko's dorm room, gave a mildly frustrated growl since he was coming up dry on his search.

…

Over in the common area of Heights Alliance, Mina gestured to the other girls in her class. "There is no need to worry, since I got enough of the lads to help me with searching the dorm rooms of the class 1-B girls. For now, we will search the girls' dorm rooms here." Pointing her toy smoking pipe's mouthpiece in the direction of the staircase, the pink-skinned girl declared, "We shall begin with Tsuyu's room!"

"My room kero?" Tsuyu said, sounding surprised.

* * *

The girls were a bit surprised to see how tame Tsuyu's dorm room was in comparison to some of the other dorm rooms that were seen when the contest was held back when everyone had first moved into Heights Alliance. It looked somewhat similar to Hagakure's bedroom, but all of the pink was replaced with green, any stuffed animals were replaced with frog plushies of a similar size, and there lily pad designs where Hagakure had hearts, roses, stars and cherry designs.

"This…" Mina said slowly as she, followed by Tsuyu and Uraraka, walked into the frog girl's dorm room. The pink-skinned girl looked around a bit, momentarily distracted by what she was seeing. "…I expected a small pond with lily pads."

Tsuyu, her expression unreadable, crossed her arms over her chest. "Well I'm sorry to disappoint you, mina." If it wasn't for Tsuyu's tone being similarly hard to read as well, then Mina would have been able to pick up on how her comment mildly offended the frog girl.

Mina gave a brisk shake of her head, to refocus herself. "Enough of that business, time to search for Uraraka's missing special ring!" The first thing that Mina did was go over to Tsuyu's dresser, where a green keepsake box sat on top. The pink-skinned girl opened the keepsake box and began to gently go through it. She found a few simple pieces of jewelry, like plain band rings, and one crafted beaded bracelet that had a clear Native American air to it.

But other than that, all that was in the keepsake box were a dark green hair scrunchy, a photo of Tsuyu with her younger siblings, a keychain attached to a keyring that had two small keys on it, and a small handful of yen coins that couldn't have added up to more than seven-hundred and fifty yen. A more thorough search of the room revealed that, aside from having a noticeable frog theme, Tsuyu was no different than most other girls her age. Similarly, Tsuyu's room held no sign of Uraraka's missing ring.

Mina let out a resigned sigh before she turned to face the girls in the room with her. "Tsuyu, you're off the hook," Mina stated. Pointing towards the door leading out of Tsuyu's dorm room, the pink-skinned girl declared, "Next up is Habuko's room!"

* * *

Part of why Mina wanted to start with Tsuyu's room is because Tsuyu, as well as Bakugo and Mineta, did not have their rooms showcased to the rest of 1-A yet, not that Mina and the other girls were exactly in any sort of hurry to see the dorm where the infamous pervert resided. One other reason that Mina wanted to start with Tsuyu was because Habuko, along with Hatsume and Eunice, all occupied rooms on the fifth floor, with Habuko being next door to Tsuyu; as such, this filled up all the rooms on the top floor. The only new girl in 1-A that was not in a fifth floor room was Sakaki, as she was on the second floor in the dorm room across from Aoyama's.

Mina, followed by Uraraka and Habuko, went into the snake girl's dorm room; it was very similar to Tsuyu's, but all of the frog stuff was swapped out for snake stuff, and the green was replaced with a sort of tannish brown that one would see on some species of snakes. Overall, it didn't really stick out compared to the more elaborate rooms some of the other 1-A students had at Heights Alliance.

Mina, with her self-professed 'world class detective skills' that she clarified had the 'skills' spelled with a 'z' at the end instead of an 's', searched Habuko's dorm room for any sign of the missing ring that Uraraka had inherited from her late paternal grandfather. The pink-skinned detective declared that nothing would stop her or hold her back until she had uncovered the truth, then she got right to work looking through Habuko's dorm room.

Nothing of interest came up during the search, aside from a few small ends Mina found in the top drawer of Habuko's desk, but that held nothing aside from a zipped-up pencil case (that Mina also looked through but it was empty), a photo of Habuko and Tsuyu when they were in middle school, and what looked to be a Mineta-shaped voodoo doll that had X's for eyes. There were also half a dozen pins sticking out of the groin area of the voodoo doll.

Mina closed the drawer of Habuko's desk that she was looking through before turning to face the girls. Mina gave a shrug as she faced her classmates. "…Yeah, Habuko's off the hook. I didn't find Uraraka's ring, nor did I find anything that would make anyone question anything." Mina tapped her right fist into the palm of her left hand before she said, "We're going to be swinging by Eunice's room next."

* * *

Eunice's room looked similarly as girly as Hagaure's, but the girliness factor was toned down a bit. There were no designs on the pink curtains, the small table between the bed and the dresser, the bed sheet set on the bed, or anywhere else in the room. The desk also looked a bit less ornate, there was a waist high bookshelf in front of the head of the bed instead of a table with a lamp on it, and there was only a keepsake box, a small row of some more books, and an extra pair of noise-canceling headphones on top of Eunice's dresser. There were also no stuffed animals or anything like that on Eunice's bed.

"Huh," Mina remarked aloud as she gently brushed the prints of her left hand fingers over the extra pair of noise-canceling headphones that were on top of Eunice's dresser, after having searched the keepsake box and found nothing that would lend anything in any direction in the search for Uraraka's missing ring, "You seem to have an affinity for blocking out noise."

"Loud noises, or too many noises at once, tend to distress me," Eunice explained, a mildly flustered look on her face.

"Oh, that's right!" Mina and Eunice both turned to look at Uraraka, who looked like she had remembered something. The gravity girl turned to face the green-haired girl, a look of wonder on her face. "You mentioned back when you, Tsuyu and I went to that place in town with Ryukyu that helped with teaching and caring for autistic children that you're autistic yourself, right?"

Eunice nodded once in the affirmative as she gently brushed the right ear pad of the noise-canceling headphones she wore around her neck with her right fingertips. "Some of the kids there had headphones just like what I have, so you asked me about it. In fact, I went to that place when I was younger until I sort of graduated from there."

"Well whereas she has pairs of special headphones," Mina remarked to the girls as she turned to face them, "Something Eunice doesn't have is Uraraka's ring." There was a look of wonder on the pink-skinned detective's face. "…What I _did_ find signs of were how Eunice must be pretty damn loaded. Not Yaoyorozu level, but still pretty damn high up there."

"My previous home, where I lived with my birth mom, was pretty low income," Eunice explained, "Then my mom became really scary, then I was rescued from my previous home, and now my quirk tutor Mr. Raioh is my foster dad. Mr. Raioh is much nicer to me than my mom was when I was still living with her."

Both Mina and Uraraka looked at their autistic classmate with wide-eyed looks of mild unsettlement, surprised to have learned that Eunice had seemingly had a bit of a rough life before she was taken in by the chief of the HPSC's advisory panel. Mina even looked like she wanted to give Eunice a hug, but refrained from doing so as she forced a cough so she could try to refocus her thoughts on the investigation.

Mina, with some renewed vigor, pointed towards Eunice's dorm room door. "Either way, Eunice is off the hook. Anyway, our next stop shall take us to Hatsume's room!"

* * *

Both Mina and Uraraka expected the eccentric pink-haired inventor's room to basically be another Development Studio. And while there _was_ a worktable next to the foot end of Hatsume's bed that had a small contraption of some kind the size of a toaster on it, disassembled and ready to be put together, Hatsume's dorm room looked pretty average compared to the dorm rooms of other class 1-A students.

There was a dresser against the left hand wall, a desk next to that so that the desk was between the dresser and the sliding glass door that led to the veranda, there was a coffee brewer, plus a pack of coffee filters, a canister of coffee grounds, some coffee mugs, a sealed container of sugar and a bottle of powdered coffee creamer on top of Hatsume's dresser, a few books plus some sort of invention the size of a loaf of bread on the bookshelf above the dresser, and that was about it.

"You…" Mina said as Hatsume and Uraraka followed her into the former's dorm room, her eyes drifting over to the coffee making supplies. "…Seem to have a thing for coffee, Hatsume."

Hatsume, with a look of amused pride on her face, declared, "The last time I got sleep was back on Thursday." Uraraka's expression lit up with surprised, mildly confused concern as she turned to face the eccentric pink-haired girl while she pointed out to her that today's Wednesday.

…

After a quick few minutes of searching, Mina came up empty on Uraraka's missing ring, so Hatsume was let off the hook for that. Something that she was _not_ left off the hook for was the need for her to catch some shut-eye, so after Mina and Uraraka collected all of Hatsume's coffee making supplies with the promise to return it all later, Mina ordered Hatsume to get some sleep. The two girls stood outside of the closed door that led into Hatsume's dorm room, with Mina very confident that she got all of Hatsume's coffee making supplies.

"You forget that I searched the whole of the room," was Mina's reply when Uraraka asked her how she could be so sure they got all of Hatsume's coffee making supplies. The two girls, after reaching the ground floor of Height's Alliance, went to set all of the stuff that they confiscated from Hatsume on the island table in the kitchen area before Mina gestured for Uraraka to follow her back up to the second floor to check out Sakaki's dorm room.

* * *

As it turned out, Sakaki chose the second floor dorm room across from Aoyama's because it put her next door to Shinso's dorm room, which was across from Izuku's dorm room. Uraraka and Sakaki stood by as Mina searched the fat cat girl's room. It was decorated in a manner similar to that of Hagakure's room, but a lot plainer and with a lack of stuffed animals. There was also a mini fridge in Sakaki's room, and next to that a cabinet loaded with various snacks, such as chip bags and individually wrapped snack cakes. The mini fridge, when searched, held a number of bottles of soda and some candies, mostly chocolate bars.

Mina searched a keepsake box she spotted on top of Sakaki's dresser, but it contained nothing more than a small handful of yen (a little more than what Tsuyu had), a strip of photos from a photo booth that Sakaki went to with Shinso, and a dark blue hair scrunchy. Additional searching of the room as a whole yielded no signs of Uraraka's special ring.

The pink-skinned detective let out a resigned sigh as she turned to face Uraraka and Sakaki, mostly the former. "…Well, after I searched all of the girls' rooms thus far, I found bupkus."

"What about the girls' rooms that weren't searched here in the dorm building?" Sakaki asked, a look of curiosity on her face.

Mina, with a confident look on her face, replied, "I have some of the boys searching those rooms, much like how I have some boys searching the dorm rooms over at the 1-B dorm building." She crossed her arms over her chest, a look of confidence on her face. "Never let it be said that I leave any stone unturned." Mina saw the worried looks on the faces of both Uraraka and Sakaki, then realized what was on their minds. "Relax, Mineta is not part of the boys' search team." Uraraka and Sakaki both let out relieved sighs.

…

Over in Mina's dorm room, Sero, Kaminari and Kirishima were searching around for signs of Uraraka's ring. "I still can't believe that we're searching Mina's dorm room for Uraraka's missing ring," Sero remarked, sounding a bit amazed that he was even in a girl's dorm room at all. The tape dispensing hero-in-training turned to regard his fellow Baku-squad members. "What do you guys think?"

"Ehh, Mina's more like a sister to me, so I don't feel as bothered," Kirishima remarked as he lifted up the pillows on Mina's bed to look under them, finding nothing. After setting the pillows down, the hardening quirk boy let out a resigned sigh, prompting both Sero and Kaminari to turn to face him. "…Bakugo and Todoroki are both pretty lucky when it comes to getting girls to like them, since we heard that they both successfully got together with their respective crushes before this whole search thing started up. And Izuku has been dating Bakugo's mom since before the tournament we had against Vulcan High."

Sero and Kaminari both saw the troubled look on Kirishima's face, the resigned sense of hopelessness in his tone. Kaminari walked up to Kirishima, laid a hand on his right shoulder. Kirishima looked up from the floor and came face to face with Kaminari, seeing the look of understanding sympathy in the electric quirk boy's eyes. "You wonder when it will be your turn to find a girl that likes you."

As Kirishima's eyes returned to looking down at the floor, Kaminari patted him on the shoulder that he had his hand on. "No need to worry about it, dude," Kaminari reassured his red-haired friend, "I am certain that, in time, you will find a girl that will be open to the idea of being in a relationship with you."

"Yeah, man," Sero said as he got on board with Kaminari trying to reassure Kirishima, "I mean, one of the things you've work on in your efforts to become manly is to become as much of a gentleman as you could, and if there's one thing that girls like, it when they see a guy who is a gentleman." The tape dispensing hero-in-training gave Kirishima a double thumbs up. "You'll get a girl's eye one of these days, dude."

Kirishima was touched by the support and reassurance that his friends were showing him. "Aww, come here, bros," Kirishima said as he threw his left arm around Sero and his right around Kaminari before drawing them both into a group bro-hug. Sero and Kaminari, both of them bros themselves, returned the bro-hug to their red-haired friend.

* * *

After all of the searching was taken care of, the students of 1-A and 1-B all met in the first floor common area of the 1-B dorm building. "Well this was a bust!" Mina, who changed back into a regular outfit by this point, declared as she threw her arms into the air. Huffing in an annoyed tone, she crossed her arms over her chest, fuming a bit. "We searched the dorm rooms of every girl we know of, and we came up empty!"

"I understand how you feel, Pinky," Bakugo said from where he stood, his arms crossed over his chest. "Deku, Half-n-half, Kirishima and I found nothing in the mushroom girl's room."

Kirishima, along with Sero and Kaminari, all looked at their group's leader with mildly confused looks, as did Mina who decided to take the initiative. "Umm, Bakugo, I didn't put Kirishima in your search group."

"Really?" Bakugo replied, a similarly confused and mildly curious look on his face, "Huh." The explosive teen gave an indifferent shrug of his shoulders. "I could have sworn that Kirishima was part of my search group." Bakugo continued to ponder the point with a curious and somewhat confused look on his face as both Izuku and Todoroki, feeling the ready to pounce at a moment's notice glare of Itsuka on them, nervously kept their respective mouths shut.

As all of the 1-A and 1-B students pondered what could have happened, Nemuri walked in. "Hey Uraraka," the eighteen only hero said, a look of firm seriousness on her face, "When are you going to call off this joke you're leading both your class and the kids in 1-B on?"

Everyone turned to look at their math teacher with confused looks, with Uraraka being the most confused of all. "Joke? What are you talking about, Nemuri-sensei?"

"I saw you head into the locker room at around ten-thirty this morning," Nemuri explained, "While everyone was playing tennis."

"Wait, wait, wait!" Mina's exclamations got everyone to turn to face her. Looking at Nemuri, the pink-skinned girl said, "That's impossible. Uraraka left the girls' locker room with me and the others at ten-ten. She was with me the entire time outside, and we didn't go back inside until sometime around ten-forty-five, when we had to pack it in early due to Mineta taking a tennis ball right to his tennis balls." Some of the boys chuckled at Mina's crack at the infamous pervert having the most unfortunate luck when it came to his hidden treasure getting struck a lot.

Nemuri, with a curious look on her face, crossed her arms over her chest. "…Well I distinctly remember seeing Uraraka go into the girls' locker room at ten-thirty, so unless Uraraka has an evil twin or something along those lines, I don't know what else to tell you."

With that, Nemuri left her students be, a lot of them wondering just what could have happened to result in the theft of Uraraka's special ring. According to the eighteen only hero, Uraraka herself had taken the ring, but Mina's vouching for Uraraka, as well as a number of other witnesses, were able to verify that there was no way that the gravity girl could have been the one that had stolen her own ring. The students of 1-A and 1-B all began to ponder this newest layer to what has become one of the biggest mysteries that they've dealt with to date.

* * *

Uraraka could be seen walking along alone in a somewhat shady part of town. She entered an alleyway as he skin began to turn gray and gloppy, falling off of her form in blobs that made disgusting splats on the ground. By the time all of that was done and over with, Uraraka was no more, replaced with Himiko Toga, the villain that can transform into other by using blood. The psychotic schoolgirl reached into a pocket, fished out a ring.

Uraraka's special ring.

The psychotic schoolgirl grinned in psychotic amusement as the gleam of the gravity girl's ring shone with what little light made its way into that alleyway. Toga chuckled a bit as she slipped the special ring back into the one pocket of her cardigan that she was wearing. Toga, due to how her uniquely disturbed mind worked, saw Uraraka as one of her close friends, and as such, she had a desire to be more like Uraraka.

Toga, normally, would do this by taking a bit of Uraraka's blood and, using that with her quirk, turn into Uraraka temporarily so she could live as her. But the psychotic schoolgirl was running low on how much of Uraraka's blood she had left, and Toga had been told by her fellow villains Dabi and Spinner that she needed to conserve what little of Uraraka's blood that she had left; the three of them recently were given a job by the benefactor that secretly provided funds to both the villains and the benefactor's personal mercenary force that has tried to, but so far failed, to kill the gravity girl.

Said job would require Toga to be able to transform into Uraraka, and she needed to be able to maintain that transformation for as long as possible. The psychotic schoolgirl figured that, with what she had left after turning into Uraraka temporarily to sneak onto U.A. grounds and steal her special ring, she had enough of Uraraka's blood to stay transformed as her for a solid thirty minutes or so. After that, Toga would be unable to turn into Uraraka due to not having any of Uraraka's blood to fuel the transformation.

Toga entered a somewhat shady bar whose entrance was located in the alleyway she wandered into. Entering the establishment, Toga soon spotted Dabi and Spinner occupying a booth located close to the bar counter. Her fellow villains waived her over, and it was Spinner who noted the look of amusement on Toga's face. "…I assume that you just killed someone." The remark from the lizard man was dry, carrying a hint of knowingness.

To the mildly piqued surprise of Spinner and Dabi, Toga gently shook her head. "Nope, I went to grab this from Gravity Girl at U.A. while no one was looking!" Toga reached into her cardigan's one pocket and fished out Uraraka's special ring. "This belongs to her, and it's very special to her. She's very special to me, so if I have something special of hers, it's like she's constantly by my side!" Toga closed her hands around the ring, gave off a happy, content hum.

Dabi and Spinner both turned to look at each other, with Dabi pointing his right index finger at the right side of his head while twirling said index finger around, drawing an unspoken nod of agreement out of Spinner. The two villains turned to face the lone female member of their trio, who was distracted by her prize so she didn't see Dabi and Spinner mock her. In fact, Toga was so distracted by having Uraraka's special ring that Spinner had to pat her on the right shoulder (she sat next to Spinner in the booth) to get her attention.

Toga turned to regard the lizard man, who gave her a serious look before he spoke. "Well since you were able to get back to us no problem, I suppose you braving the risk of sneaking onto U.A. grounds was nothing to big to worry about. Just don't try it again unless we're working as a group and we have a game plan for a mission." Spinner then crossed his arms over his chest as he added, "Also, I hope you still have enough of that girl's blood for the job that the three of us here have to do."

Being reminded of the job that she had to do with Spinner and Dabi made the psychotic schoolgirl pout a bit in a manner that showed she was not happy or amused with the matter. "I still don't like what we have to do for that job, though."

"I agree," Spinner said, a hint of resignation in his tone as he nodded once in agreement, "The nature of the work we have to do for that job does not line up with the ideology of Stain at all."

"Totally," Dabi remarked, picking up his glass of cola and taking a sip from it before setting it back down and continuing. "What we have to do for this job is nothing that I'd do willingly." The blue flame villain let out a resigned sigh as he leaned back in his seat, throwing his head back to look up at the ceiling as he added, "But given that one of our primary sources of income had just be cut off, we don't exactly have any choice in the matter."

Spinner and Toga both nodded in agreement to the point that Dabi had just made, with Toga still looking a bit troubled by whatever it was about the nature of the job she and the boys had to do, and Spinner simply picking up his mug of root beer and draining it dry before setting it back down with a slight but noticeable thump. Dabi, with a bit of a sigh, reached into the right pocket on the jacket he wore.

Taking out a folded-up sheet of paper, Dabi unfolded it, revealing that it was actually two sheets aligned together before being folded up. The blue flame villain sat aside one sheet of paper, which looked like it was a printed map of a neighborhood somewhere, to the side as he took the other sheet of paper, which had a written list of instructions, and sat that in the middle of the table in the booth he occupied with Spinner and Toga.

"Okay, you two. Here's step one of what we have to do."

END, CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Author's notes;

Well then, this has been the first chapter of the 'Extra arc'. It serves as the arc between the previous arc and the next one, which will play a big role for the narrative of 'A couple that will go down in legend' as a whole. But don't let all of this fool you into thinking this arc isn't all that important; on the contrary, a number of things will happen here that will play slight but notable roles in future happenings in this story.

I just figured that some time needed to be taken to flesh out some characters a bit more, which is part of why I'm doing the 'Extra arc'. The new students in 1-A and 1-B will see some love here and there, as will the villains. As a side note, although the villains have seen some action before, they will see a bit more prominence here in the current arc. As a matter of fact, the next chapter will revolve primarily around Dabi, Spinner and Toga, who have quickly become my favorites of the League/Front. The Asuis will also feature to an extent.


	27. Chapter 27

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter twenty-seven: The big three of the Front

Mrs. Uraraka, the mother of U.A. student Ochaco Uraraka, was at home alone one well enough day, between morning and afternoon. Things had been picking up for the construction company that she and her husband own and ran. The mother of the gravity girl felt that she, as well as both her husband and Ochaco as well, owed a lot to Ochaco's classmates and schoolmates over at U.A. After all, it was due to the commercial that they all made for Uraraka Construction, as well as how they managed to get a _lot_ of pro heroes to help, that the Uraraka family was finally able to step out of the shadow of low to mid-lower class.

The woman calmly and contently hummed a tune to herself as she washed a plate that was in the dirty dishes in her family's kitchen; with her husband doing some interviews for people that applied to try to get a job working for Uraraka Construction, as well as Ochaco being busy with her schooling over at the best hero high school in Japan, Mrs. Uraraka felt a bit lonely all by her lonesome in the house, which by the way was now a bit more spruced up and well stocked due to the Urarakas now having a larger income.

So it goes without saying that when she heard the front door open, Mrs. Uraraka couldn't help but be surprised. Only her husband or their daughter would enter the house without knocking, so it had to be one of them. That's where Mrs. Uraraka's surprise stemmed from partly; she wasn't expecting her husband back until a little after five, and Ochaco was still over at U.A., so one of them coming here now was a bit out of the blue. Especially so for Ochaco, as it was her who had walked into the Uraraka family home. Her eyes met with those of her mother's, and the gravity girl had the decency to look embarrassed for this out of the blue drop in.

Ochaco gently rubbed the back of her head as she giggled a bit in a mildly embarrassed manner when she was greeted by her mother. "Sorry if this is unexpected, mom, but there was something that I needed to go over you with, and it wouldn't exactly do if we talked over the phone."

Mrs. Uraraka, although still a tad surprised by her daughter dropping in to visit, was still nonetheless happy to see her daughter. The older Uraraka woman gave a sympathetic smile as she greeted her daughter. "There's no need to sweat it, Ochaco. Either way, I'm glad that you decided to drop in." Mrs. Uraraka gestured for her daughter to follow her to the kitchen, which was an invitation that the gravity girl accepted wordlessly. "Although now that you mention it, it is a bit on the surprising side that you'd drop in without at least contacting your father or I about it first. Does your school even know you're here?"

Ochaco nodded briskly before saying, "Oh yeah, I told my teachers that I needed to see you for something of an emergency."

An emergency? That instantly drew out a bit of worry from Mrs. Uraraka. The woman turned to fully face her daughter, a look of concern on the older Uraraka woman's face. "An emergency? Ochaco, sweetie, what happened?"

Ochaco let out a resigned, mildly troubled sigh before she proceeded to explain. "You know my special ring? The big, bulky gold one with the red stone?"

"You mean your late grandfather's class ring?" Ochaco nodded once in the affirmative to her mother's question.

Letting out a troubled sigh, the gravity girl said, "I put it in my locker at school in the girls locker room before I had to go out to play tennis with the rest of the class. During that time, someone got into my locker and stole it."

"Someone stole your grandfather's ring?" Mrs. Uraraka said, clearly shocked. Ochaco had the decency to look ashamed of this, but her mother quickly reassured her. "…Sweetie, there's nothing that can be done about someone having the gall to break into your locker and stealing the ring you inherited from your grandfather, although I am a bit surprised that someone at a hero high school would steal anything."

The older Uraraka woman turned around to face the sink again, going back to washing some dishes. "Did you at least tell your teachers about it?" Mrs. Uraraka asked as she picked up a plate and began to hand dry it with a small towel.

A hum of 'mmm hmm' from her daughter told Mrs. Uraraka that her daughter was taking the necessary steps to recover her stolen possession. As Mrs. Uraraka continued to wash the dishes, something her daughter said caught her attention. "I'm not sure how much good it will come of it, though, given how busy they all are with a lot of stuff that's going on right now. However, I do have a rather strong feeling on who it was that stole my ring, so I intend to look getting my ring back myself."

"Ah, that's good," Mrs. Uraraka remarked, a bit amused by how her daughter was taking charge to bring the detestable thief who stole a family heirloom to justice. The older Uraraka woman even gave off a bit of an amused smirk, wanting to hear what was on her daughter's mind. Never turning her attention from the sink where the dirty dishes were, Mrs. Uraraka continued, "So then sweetie. Who do you think the thief that-"

*SHUK*

Mrs. Uraraka was cut off when she felt a blazingly searing pain shoot up from her right side. Which was appropriate as there was a pocketknife with a three-inch blade sticking out from there, just under where the right side of the rib cage ended. Although she was in a lot of pain, Mrs. Uraraka was more shocked by how she was suddenly stabbed. The older Uraraka woman turned around to see her daughter standing there, a somber, regretful frown on her face as she hung her head a bit.

Mrs. Uraraka was beyond shocked that her own daughter would attack her in such a fashion. Her daughter, who was aiming to be a pro hero, just attacked her with a knife. Uraraka brought her head back up so that she could see the look of betrayed shock on her mother's face. Interestingly, Uraraka still looked upset, as if what she was doing wasn't something that she had much say in doing. "I'm really sorry about this, ma'am," the gravity girl remarked, ashamed.

Ochaco then reached forward and yanked the pocketknife out of her mother's right side. As she did this, the gravity girl's skin began to turn gray, before blobs of her began to fall off and splat on the floor, much to Mrs. Uraraka's ever-increasing horror and confusion. After a few moments, Ochaco had been replaced with a psychotic-looking, but notably regretful, high school girl with blonde hair in twin buns that had strands sticking out at random places. This girl, a scary mystery to Mrs. Uraraka, stood in the middle of a mess of gray blobs in the kitchen with her.

The psychotic looking girl, with a somber look on her face, casually pointed at the woman she had attacked with the bloodied blade of her pocketknife. "Uraraka-chan must get a lot of her toughness from you," the mystery girl said, "She's pretty tough, and you're still standing even though I just stabbed you." Reaching into one of the pockets on the cardigan that she wore, the psychotic girl removed a men's class ring that Mrs. Uraraka could tell at a glance was the ring her daughter inherited from her grandfather. "Oh, and umm, actually, I was the one who took Uraraka-chan's special ring. It just that it seemed so special to her, and she's so special to me, so I just had to have it. That way, it would be like Uraraka-chan is always by my side."

"Who…" Mrs. Uraraka said somewhat shakily, alarms blaring inside of her head, "…Who are you? What did you do to my daughter?"

The psychotic looking girl gave a heartbroken sigh as she waved away Mrs. Uraraka's worries. "Relax, ma'am. I didn't kill her if that's what's got you so worried. I just got enough of her blood so I can live as her for a few hours." Contemplatively, the girl looked at the bloodied blade of her pocketknife. "…Although with what I've used of her blood since I got it, I figure I got about fifteen minutes worth of blood left before I'm out."

Mrs. Uraraka couldn't believe it; she not only let a psychotic girl disguised as Ochaco into her house, but said girl had attacked her, and was now acting like all of her blood rending was as casual as someone asking someone else for the time. The older Uraraka woman knew that she had to get out of here, and get out of her fast. Otherwise, there was no telling what would happen to her if she remained alone with a-

*FWOOOOSH*

Mrs. Uraraka's thought process was cut off when a ball of blue flames the size of a softball flew right past her in front of her face. The blue flame ball smacked into the wall between the cabinets where dry food was stored and the refrigerator; a calendar caught fire, but it soon went out. More to the point, Mrs. Uraraka wasn't concerned about the blue fire, but rather who it was that threw some of it in her general direction.

The panicked, bleeding woman turned to see a black-haired man with purple patches of skin over various parts of his body, giving her a grim, serious look. "…Lady, this will be a hell of a lot easier for all of us involved here if you just cooperate and not make a scene." The blue flame man held up both hands, which were engulfed in his fire. This was done in a way that made it clear to Mrs. Uraraka that these villains, for they clearly were as such, weren't going to let her get away. Like the mystery girl, this mystery guy sounded like he didn't want to do this.

"…P-Please…" Mrs. Uraraka said as she was scared for her life. These villains sounded like they didn't want to harm her, so she was going to try to reason with them. "…I have no idea what it is you two want with me, but there isn't all that much in the way of valuables here. My…my family and I just got out of the red, and we're still far away from building up enough to-"

The older Uraraka woman was cut off when she felt the blade of a knife pressed against the front of her throat, held there by someone standing behind her. Straining her eyes, Mrs. Uraraka was able to see just a bit of the person who was holding her at knife point; to her shock and surprise, it was a humanoid lizard man with purple hair. He also wore a ninja-like eye mask over his eyes, eyes that looked at her with…resigned sadness?

"Nothing personal. It's just business."

*SLASH*

…

Dabi fished a pair of gloves out of the left pocket of his long black coat that he wore while Spinner told Toga off for getting aroused by the pool of blood on the floor, a pool that the body of Mrs. Uraraka laid in, front-side down and with her head turned so that it faced the sink. The eyes of the now late Uraraka matriarch were glossed over, and the lids were halfway closed. The blue flame villain, as he snuck a casual glance at where Mrs. Uraraka's remains laid on the kitchen floor, let out a troubled, mildly resigned sigh.

As much as this was something Dabi, as well as both Spinner and Toga, did not want to do, they didn't have much of a choice. Given that their group lost one of their main sources of income, they now had to do whatever job may come their way from the mysterious benefactor that has been supplying their group with funds since before All For One's last battle against All Might. Re-Destro being cut off from a lot of his wealth wasn't helping a lot with the issue, either.

…Still, a job with a nature like this did not sit well with Dabi and his two companions.

After he had put his gloves on, Dabi reached into the right pocket on his black long coat and fished out a plastic sandwich bag that held a folded up sheet of paper and a pocketknife; this was prepared ahead of time in such a manner to ensure that Dabi would be leaving no fingerprints on anything. Similarly, both Spinner and Toga were exercising similar caution, even though the heroes and police had enough info on them that such efforts on their respective parts could be argued as pointless.

Dabi opened the bag, removed the folded paper and pocketknife, unfolded the sheet of paper, then held it up against the wall in the kitchen before stabbing the top of the sheet with the pocketknife with such force that it effectively pinned the sheet of paper to the wall in the kitchen. Seeing that he did that little bit well enough, Dabi turned to face Spinner and Toga, both of whom had seen him pin the paper to the wall with the pocketknife.

The blue flame villain shrugged as he addressed his fellows. "…Did either of you take the picture that our benefactor will be needing to see?"

"Got it right here," Spinner said with a notable lack of enthusiasm as he held up a single polaroid photo with his right hand; an old model camera, one that printed the photo after it was taken, was held in the lizard man's left hand. Dabi gently received the photo from Spinner and took a look at it. Sure enough, it was a photo of Mrs. Uraraka's face, stained with the blood from the pool that formed from the gash on her throat.

Dabi let out a resigned breath as he confirmed that this photo would be sufficient for the purposes of the grim job that he, Spinner and Toga had to do. Sure, they normally had no trouble with killing people, and have done so multiple times in the past. But this one…this one was a killing that neither Dabi, Spinner nor Toga were proud of. Even so, it had to be done, and it was. Dabi gestured for Spinner and Toga to follow him, given that they had to get out of there.

The three villains left the scene of their crime, a location that became eerily quiet after their departure. A slight gust of wind blew through the sliding glass door that was left open by the fleeing villains, allowing the paper that Dabi pinned to the wall with a pocketknife to sway a bit in the breeze, but not fall down from where it was pinned. Written on the paper was a message. Short and simple, but more than sufficient to get a point across.

_**YOU'VE BEEN WARNED**_

* * *

Dabi, Spinner and Toga were at a hidden location that seemed to be an abandoned warehouse that was set up as something of a bar. A villain that was a member of the Meta Liberation Army before it was absorbed by the League and combined became the Front served as the bartender, standing behind the counter as he retrieved a bottle of beer and slid it to Trumpet, who said that he was needing a drink all day long.

Dabi, with Spinner and Toga, sat at a table by themselves, having just arrived at the Front-owned makeshift bar. As the three of them cooled off a bit after having just completed their job that saw them eliminate Mrs. Uraraka, they were approached by Mr. Compress, who tipped the brim of his hat to them in greeting. "I heard from Shigaraki that you three successfully completed the job that you were sent out to do. That's good, as one of our funding lines was cut, and Re-Destro can't access his Detnerat wealth for the time being because of allegations thrown at him."

"It wasn't a difficult job," was all that Dabi said before he picked up his glass of soda and took a sip from it. Both Spinner and Toga were similarly quiet. This did not escape the attention of the dapperly dressed villain, who gave a sympathetic sigh.

He gestured to an empty chair at the table that Dabi and his group occupied, and both Dabi and Spinner nodded once in unison, giving Mr. Compress the okay to sit down with them. "It would seem that you three had been assigned to carry out a killing that, unlike others you all have done in the past, was not quite your cup of tea."

"I just don't see why we had to assassinate some random housewife who with her husband was part owner of a construction company that barely just got out of the red," Spinner said, a hint of exasperated frustration with all that he, Dabi and Toga had to do showing through. The lizard man crossed his arms over his chest, gave a bemused huff. "She was no fake hero, did no one any upfront harm. Hers was a killing that Stain wouldn't have carried out."

"And yet the gentleman who is our mysterious benefactor," Mr. Compress began to point out, "Who we have to rely on more now for funding since our men who were serving as agents in that accounting business were caught by Endeavor, wanted to see the good lady Uraraka dead."

Dabi let out a disgusted scoff when his dapperly dressed associate mentioned the current number one hero by name. "…Please refrain from saying that fucker's name while I'm within earshot, dude." The blue flame villain turned to regard Mr. Compress, a look of disgust mixed with a slight dash of pleading in his eyes. "You know he's a thorn in my balls." Mr. Compress saw the point that Dabi was trying to make, realized that he crossed a line with Dabi.

Turning to properly face the blue flame villain, Mr. Compress bowed his head once in a gesture of apology. "It's clear to me that you, as well as Spinner and Toga, need to have some time off to let some stress off." Mr. Compressed raised his head from bowing it so as to look at his three fellow villains. "And as it just so happened, Shigaraki said that you three have more than earned a few days of R&R."

Dabi, Spinner and Toga all raised some brows at that, with Toga being the first to speak. "It's rare to hear Shiggy being so lenient."

Mr. Compress arched a wry eyebrow, although his mask hid it. "He was quite happy with how much you three were paid by our mysterious benefactor for the job you just completed."

Dabi turned to regard Spinner and Toga, gave them a look that was twenty-seven percent confused and sixty-three percent curious. "…Well, guys? What say the two of you to a trip to the mall to get some stuff?" Both Spinner and Toga were on board with Dabi's idea of activity to kick back a bit after completing the job that made them less than comfortable. Perhaps a little bit of window shopping, as well as some actual shopping, may be just what the three villains need to cool off a bit after their latest job.

* * *

Later the following morning, the three villains were at a nearby mall, doing a bit of looking around. To their piqued interest, nobody recognized them; Dabi and Spinner even did away with their attempts to keep themselves disguised, and still no one batted an eye. Likewise, no police or pro heroes were ever called in to arrest either of them or Toga. As such, the three villains walked around the mall in their respective casual outfits.

Dabi just walked out of an edgy-looking retail store in the mall, having bought a green knit scarf that represented a house in a certain fictional school for wizards. The blue flame villain was quite frankly surprised that he was able to walk around the mall like this without people freaking out at the sight of him; or was everyone so distracted with their respective shopping that they simply did not realize that the guy who bought a green knit scarf was a known villain?

As he stood outside of the store he just made a purchase at, Dabi was greeted by Spinner, who looked relaxed in his civilian outfit. "Well I just found out a possible reason for why no none's freaking out about the two of us and Toga walking around here in broad daylight." The lizard man villain removed a folded-up newspaper from his one shopping bag from a novelty and gag gift store, unfolded said newspaper and handed it to Dabi. "Look at the article that's located over on page three."

Dabi, noticing the slight hint of urgency in Spinner's tone, curiously opened the newspaper to the page that Spinner denoted. The blue flame villain's eyes widened a bit when he spotted a fairly big article whose title was 'Wife of Uraraka Construction owner found murdered in own home'. The article went on to say that a number of pro heroes, all of whom were among the many that had assisted the U.A. students in making the commercial that was a great deal responsible for helping to bring Uraraka Construction to such prominence, were all occupied with helping police with trying to investigate.

Dabi looked up from Spinner's paper to Spinner himself, who gestured to the newspaper that he handed to his fellow villain. "When something has the attention of so many notable pro heroes, then the civilian populace is bound to pick up on the event and follow it. That's probably why the two of us and Toga have been able to-"

Spinner was cut off when he and Dabi heard a young male child cry out in mild alarm and distress. That was followed by a squishmallow-type plushy of the pro hero Ryukyu falling from the second floor walkway above Dabi and Spinner and right on the ground between where the two villains stood. "Hey boys!" Dabi and Spinner, having heard Toga call out to them from above, turned their attention upwards and saw their fellow villain waiving to them.

Curiously, Toga was accompanied by a somewhat frog-looking woman in a purple sweater with a dark purple turtleneck, an elementary-aged boy with black hair with the bangs obscuring one of his eyes, and a younger elementary-aged girl with dark green hair in twin low pigtails. "Up here!" Toga called down to Dabi and Spinner, "Some lady that rushed past us bumped into the kid and made him drop the toy that fell between you two! Can you hold onto it for us until we get down there?"

…

Toga, accompanied by the lady and her two children, reached Dabi and Spinner, the latter having picked up the Ryukyu squishmallow and handing it over to the boy. Similarly, both Spinner and Dabi noticed that the girl held a Mirko squishmallow.

"Oh, well my husband Ganma recently got a really big promotion at work," the frog-like lady explained when the villains (neither she nor either of her children recognized Dabi, Spinner or Toga) asked her, "So he asked me to take our kids here to get each of them something nice to celebrate." The frog-like lady gently laid a hand on her son's right shoulder. "Samidare here is partly the reason why my husband got the promotion, so Ganma and I were especially keen on getting him something nice."

Dabi arched a mildly wry eyebrow as he looked at the boy, identified to him as Samidare, who was looking down at the ground as if nervous. In Samidare's left hand was a shopping bag that held his squishmallow plushy. Dabi pointed at the boy while looking at the frog-like lady. "He seems rather attached to the plushy toy that you got him."

The frog-like lady let out a mildly amused chuckle. "Well, Samidare's never really been one that was hard to impress. He's perfectly happy with that squishmallow of his favorite pro hero, whereas most other kids that would be in his position would have wanted something that carried a much bigger price tag."

"I wasn't aware that there were a line of those plushies based off of pro heroes," Spinner said in a curious tone, crossing his arms over his chest.

"The new hero plushies are really soft!" the young girl remarked, making the villains turn to see her. The young girl nodded once in confirmation before she went on. "I got the one that looks like Mirko, and it's really cute! The one that looked like Scary Fire Beard looked ugly, though. It was also scary to my big brother here."

Dabi, recognizing right away that by 'Scary Fire Beard' the little girl was talking about Endeavor, had to snort back some laughter. "Yeah, you got a really good point about Scary Fire Beard right there, young lady."

The frog-like woman perked up a bit when Dabi approved of her daughter's opinion of the current number one pro hero. "You…aren't a fan of that man?"

"No way is he a fan of Endeavor, ma'am," Toga began, "My friend-"

Toga was cut off when Samidare let out a mildly frightened squeal as he moved to hide behind his mother. The frog-like woman turned to regard Toga and the other two villains. "You didn't know so I won't hold it against you, but my son is rather terrified of Japan's current number one hero, enough so that just mention that man by name is enough to make my son move to hide." The psychotic girl looked mildly worried that she had unintentionally frightened a young child.

To her credit, Toga quickly apologized for unknowingly frightening the frog-like woman's son. The frog-like woman nodded in understanding, and thanked Toga for not only promising to refrain from mentioning Endeavor (who Toga at that moment called Scary Fire Beard, having taken a cue from the young girl) by his actual name. Likewise, Spinner and (a secretly rather amused) Dabi both made the same promise.

* * *

To the surprise of the trio of villains, they ended up accompanying the frog-like woman and her two elementary-aged children on their mall trip. The combined six of them stopped for lunch in the food court, where the villains learned that the frog-like woman was named Beru and that her daughter was named Satsuki; Dabi, Spinner and Toga already got Samidare's name. Beru and her two children got some lunch from the one burger joint in the food court, same as Toga. Dabi got a relatively big take-out dish of orange chicken from a Chinese restaurant in the food court, and Spinner got a turkey gyro meal combo from a Greek restaurant in the food court.

As the villains sat down with Beru and her children to eat lunch together, Dabi noted with some curiosity that Samidare put on a pair of somewhat bulky-looking studio headphones that lack any cord attached to them. Dabi pointed to the boy while looking at Beru with a look of curiosity. "You son has a thing for music, I take it?"

Beru saw what the villain (who she has still yet to realize was a villain) was pointing out and asking about, then gently shook her head. "Oh no. Those aren't headphones for listening to music. They're a pair of noise-canceling headphones." Beru gave a quick look around the food court, paying a passing attention to the crowds and noise levels. "I can see why he'd put them on here, given the overall volume of everyone talking here. Too many noises, as well as noises that are really loud, tend to distress my son."

"Yeah, things being loud tend to grind the gears of a lot of-" Dabi began to remark in a tone of agreement, but before he could get the last few words out, he was cut off when a number of the shoppers eating lunch in the food court all cried out in panic. Alarmed, Dabi, accompanied by Spinner and Toga, stood up from the table they sat at with Beru and her two young children. The three villains looked over in the direction a number of shoppers were fleeing from, and ended up spotting the cause of all of their panicked fleeing; the villain Trapezius Head Gear was causing quite the big scene.

"Hey, I recognize that fellow." Spinner looked over where the large, pink villain was throwing around a few food court tables with his left hand as he was using his right arm to hold a few random civilians hostage. The lizard man crossed his arms over his chest, gave off an unamused huff. "He's a moderately notable villain that was stopped by All Might sometime shortly before he had to step down from hero work."

"I recognize him as well, since I saw of his arrest a while ago in the papers," Dabi said, "But what I'd like to know is what he's doing here." Both the blue flame villain's expression and tone of voice showed his curiosity, his piqued interest. "How did he get out of prison?"

Turning around, Dabi and Spinner saw Toga running to them from the direction that a big retail store was located in; said retail store was in the direction opposite of the direction that Trapezius Head Gear was having his rampage in. "I got Beru and her kids over to that big fancy retail store, so none of them are in immediate danger."

"You speak as if we're planning to actually stop Trapezius Head Gear," Spinner said, a look of incredulousness on the lizard man's face as he regarded his psychotic fellow. Spinner crossed his arms over his chest as he gave Toga a questioning look. "We're villains as well, remember? It's not like we'd be able to get away with taking any notable action here without drawing attention to ourselves. It's best if we just make ourselves scarce before any pro heroes show up." A nod of agreement came from Dabi, showing that he was on board with Spinner's plan.

However, Toga wasn't as quick to agree. "But Beru and her kids were really nice to us! How can we just up and leave while not only is their trip to the mall here being ruined, but the three of them are in potential danger?"

Both male villains let out exasperated sighs, as both of them saw that there wasn't going to be a lot of reasoning with the psychotic school girl. Looking around as he tried to quickly formulate a plan, Dabi saw spotted a wide-brimmed white fedora with a black band around the base of the head part, a simple black walking cane with a golden orb for the handle, and a hockey mask; all of these objects were abandoned by fleeing shoppers in their haste to escape the large villain.

"…I have an idea."

…

"Who here is going to try to stop me?!" Headgear exclaimed triumphantly, confident that there would be no heroes to stop him since he heard a lot of them were wrapped up in helping police with investigating some random murder. The large, pink villain picked up another food court table and threw it as far as he could, causing it to fly into the sign above the Greek restaurant that Spinner got his lunch from earlier.

Headgear laughed in self-assured confidence when he saw the table he threw shatter the sign completely, making the one woman he held as hostage shriek a bit out of fright. "Oi, shut the hell up, woman!" Headgear snapped, "I just broke out of that place I was being held at right before I could be transferred to Tartarus, so the last thing that I need right now is-"

The large, pink villain was cut off midsentence when a ball of blue flames the size of a basketball whizzed past the left side of his head, startling him a bit and making him look over in the general direction that the blue fire came from. As such, Headgear saw Dabi, but did not recognize him for multiple reasons; one, the two of them never actually met, so Headgear would not have known it was Dabi anyway, and two, Dabi wore the hockey mask and fedora that he found abandoned, as well as carry the cane he found abandoned as well.

Dabi, emulating his fellow villain Mr. Compress, flamboyantly tipped the brim of his hat that he found after he saw he got Headgear's attention. Dabi was also now wearing his villain outfit, what with the long black coat with sleeves ending at the elbows. "Oh, do forgive me for the surprise, but I wanted to make sure that I got your attention. After all, a showman like myself needs to make a statement." From where they hid, both Spinner and Toga laughed at how Dabi was acting like Mr. Compress.

Unlike the two hidden villains, Headgear was not amused. "Grr…And just who the hell do you think you are?!" the large, pink villain snapped.

Dabi grabbed his fedora with his right hand and held it over his chest as he gave a bow, holding his cane in his left hand off to the side. "I am the Dandy Magician, wizard extraordinaire." Dabi came out of his bowing, replaced the fedora onto the top of his head. He then pointed the golden orb end of his cane right at Headgear. "And you, good sir, are by no means dandy, what with how you terrorize innocent mall shoppers!"

"And you think some two-bit hero that no one's heard of like yourself can stop the likes of me?" The large, pink villain laughed at the ridiculousness of what this nobody was trying to threaten him with.

To Headgear's surprise, the disguised Dabi laughed as well. "Oh no, I am not a hero. I am a wizard, like I said." Raising his hands up into the air, Dabi continued, "And I shall be using my wizard magics to defeat you!" Again, the hidden Spinner and Toga laughed at how their fellow villain was putting on a show.

The large, pink villain decided that he needed to put all of his focus on facing this self-proclaimed wizard, so he dropped the hostages he held and charged headlong at where the Dandy Magician stood on top of a table. Dabi saw Headgear charge right at him, so he thrusted his right hand at the large villain and unleashed a torrent of blue flames, striking Headgear dead-on and making him cry out in a bit of pain but mostly alarmed surprise.

The disguised villain's torrent of blue flames ended, and he brought his right hand back. "Do you wish to try to continue this dance the two of us find ourselves in? Or perhaps you find that taking the time to yield would be a better alternative?"

Headgear was unamused by the smirking amusement in the disguised villain's tone. So much so that he roared angrily at Dabi. "You little shit! I'm going to rip your stupid little head off if it's the last thing-"

The large, pink villain was cut off again when hit by flames, but whereas Dabi's were blue, the new flames that hit him were the standard color. This also caught Dabi's attention, and when he looked over he saw Endeavor, the pro hero he hated the most, had arrived on scene. With the current number one pro hero were some of his sidekicks from the Endeavor Hero Agency; one of said sidekicks was Burnin.

"_And now I take my leave_," Dabi thought in his head as Endeavor and all of his sidekicks were so preoccupied with fighting Headgear that they failed to keep tabs on the blue flame villain, which allowed him to slip away. There was no way that Dabi, a known and wanted villain, was going to stick around while there were pro heroes on the scene, especially since one of said heroes is the man that he hated more than anyone else. Dabi by no means had the intention of being arrested, most of all by that man.

* * *

"You do realize that what you did technically counts as vigilante work," Beru remarked to Dabi when he, Spinner and Toga regrouped with her and her two children at the large store Toga led them to for safety. The frog-like woman gently shook her head, a sign that she wasn't caring much for legalities at the moment. "But I'm not going to grill you on it. Besides, your actions did buy enough time for some heroes to show up and stop that villain."

"Well it's a good thing I wore a disguise," Dabi replied, a smirk of amusement on his face. Dabi decided to keep the hat, mask and cane he collected for his disguise, not that the frog-like woman and her children had to know that. The blue flame villain gestured to Beru. "So, how are you and your kids holding up?"

Beru looked to Satsuki and Samidare, the latter cowering in a fetal position. Beru let out an understanding, resigned sigh. "I'm going to have to take Samidare home. Everything that has happened today had overwhelmed him, so he needs to cool down."

The three villains nodded in understanding, with Spinner adding, "Yeah, no kid should have to go through something like being there during a villain attack."

Beru nodded in thanks to Spinner for understanding as she proceeded to lead her children away. A few steps away, however, Samidare surprisingly stopped his mom. Getting her to bend down so he could whisper something to her, the young boy asked his mom for something, drawing a look of surprise out of the frog-like woman. The surprise was also mixed with some amusement, so she said as she got back up, "Well we will have to ask them if they're okay with it."

Hearing that bit from Beru got the attention of Dabi, Spinner and Toga, with the first of those three taking the initiative to ask. "What did the kid say?"

Beru, with a look of mild amusement on her face, explained, "Samidare said that he wanted to get a picture taken with the three of you."

"Ooh! Ooh! I want to be in the picture too!" Satsuki cheered, "Our new friends helped save us and stop a villain! They're awesome!" Dabi, as well as Spinner and Toga, all looked surprised by the fact that little kids wanted to have their pictures taken with the three of them. Unable to think of a reason to deny the request, Dabi and the others gestured for Samidare and Satsuki to come over and join them.

Standing in a group, the five of them stood close as Beru took a picture of them with her smartphone; the picture had the three villain in the back row (going from left to right in the picture; Toga, Spinner and Dabi) and the two kids in front, with Satsuki between Toga and Spinner and Samidare between Spinner and Dabi. The three villains were all a bit amused with the picture, and Beru was even able to send a copy of the photo to Toga's smartphone.

After the picture was taken and shared, the three villains said their good-byes as they waved Beru and her young children off. While everyone was distracted by Endeavor and his sidekicks having stopped and subdued Headgear, Dabi and the others were able to slip out of the mall without issue, their purchases in their bags.

As the three villains left to return to their hideout they shared with other members of the Front, Toga stopped the boys, a look of confused realization on her face. "Hey boys, quick question."

"What is it, Toga?" Spinner asked.

"Did we just do hero work?"

Surprised by Toga's question, as well as realizing where said question came from, Dabi and Spinner both turned to look at each other, exchanging surprised looks.

* * *

Tsuyu Asui entered her family's home later that evening. Accompanying the frog girl of U.A.'s class 1-A was her classmate Fumikage Tokoyami, who was carrying a twelve inch by ten inch closed Tupperware dish of food that he brought over. Tsuyu noted the Tupperware her dark classmate brought along to the house. "It was really nice of you to bring something for joining my family for dinner tonight kero."

"Well it wouldn't do if I didn't act like a proper guest, Tsuyu," Tokoyami replied as he was led inside by his frog-like classmate, "Even if it's just baked sweet potatoes."

As Tsuyu and Tokoyami walked into the living room, they were greeted by Tsuyu's mother Beru. "Oh, you're finally here, sweetie," the frog-like woman greeted in a pleasantly surprised tone to her teenage daughter, "And you brought a friend as well."

Tsuyu gestured to Tokoyami while facing her mother. "Mom, this is Fumikage. I told you and dad about him, remember?"

Beru, with an amused smile, turned to regard the dark bird boy. "Oh, so you're this Fumikage fellow that my daughter's become smitten with. …Or was it you who became smitten with Tsuyu first? How did it work out again?"

"I…would like to think that both happened at around the same time, ma'am," Tokoyami replied, blushing a bit, "I mean, Tsuyu and I did sort of hit it off just after we all moved in to the Heights Alliance dorms over on U.A. campus grounds, so it's been awhile and we can't exactly recall all of the details."

The commotion that Tsuyu, Tokoyami and Beru were making drew the attention of Satsuki and Samidare, both of whom came over. "Big sis!" Satsuki cheered, "You won't believe what happened at the mall today!"

"Happened at the mall…" Tokoyami remarked as he pondered what the six-year-old girl said. After thinking on it for a moment, Tokoyami seemed to recall something. "Ah, yes. From what I had heard on the matter, a villain known as Trapezius Head Gear had escaped police holding as he was being transported to Tartarus Prison and made his way to a local mall, where he was causing untold chaos. He even took a few random mall shoppers hostage."

Tsuyu's little sister nodded a few times in the affirmative. "Yeah huh! There was this big, pink scary villain, and he was throwing around tables, and making a lot of people scared, but one of me and Samidare's new friends that we made stopped him long enough for heroes to show up and stop the villain for good! Also, one of our new friends got me and Samidare and mom to a safe place while the heroes fought the big, scary villain!"

"You two made some new friends today kero?" Tsuyu asked, her interest piqued by hearing what her little. Beru, knowing where this was leading, took out her smartphone and pulled up the picture that she had taken earlier of Satsuki, Samidare and 'their new friends' over at the mall. Beru turned her smartphone around so she could show the picture that she took to Tsuyu, as well as Tokoyami who leaned in slightly to see the picture.

Right away, Tsuyu's eyes widened a bit in shocked realization. "Mom, those three are villains."

Beru looked shocked by what her oldest child had said. "Villains? Tsuyu, sweetie, what do you mean by that?"

"I can back Tsuyu up on this one, ma'am," Tokoyami said to Beru as he pointed to the picture, "Those three are known villains that we were warned about by our teachers over at U.A. As a matter of fact, the girl villain in the photo is the one who attacked Tsuyu and our classmate Uraraka during our stay at the training camp a while ago." Tsuyu nodded in the affirmative as Beru looked on in shock.

"Mom, you had better save that photo so we can show it to pro heroes as evidence when we report this," Tsuyu advised her mother, "A villain sighting like this has to be reported to the pro heroes. They'll be wanting to know about this."

Beru, albeit a bit shocked by what she had just learned, nodded in agreement with Tsuyu and Tokoyami. Satsuki and Samidare looked confused by what all was going on, and Satsuki was very curious about why her big sister was calling her and Samidare's new friends villains. Those three weren't villains; they were really nice to her and Samidare, and they even helped with the stopping of that big villain that Scary Fire Beard took down.

Would villains do something like all of that?

END, CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Author's Notes;

If they get caught up in stuff and are too confused by what all is going on to object, yes. More to the point, I wanted to further expand upon the trio of Dabi, Spinner and Toga, who featured a lot in my now-completed story 'We must protect the runestone!' which has a lot of relevance to the overall plot of this story, believe it or not. Same goes for 'The quirks of living in Royal Woods', so reading both stories will help clue you in on a _**lot**_ of what goes on here in this story. But all of that is beside the point.

Now, before anyone starts to complain about how Dabi, Spinner and Toga murdered Uraraka's mom in this chapter, let me just say this; they are _**VILLAINS**_, bad guys. Murdering innocent persons like that is what many would expect villains to do. Additionally, believe it or not, the death of Uraraka's mom in this chapter is necessary for happenings that will occur later on down the line in this story. It is vital to serve an important role in an overarching plot in a future arc in later on in this story.

Said narrative, in fact, was hinted at by Dabi, Spinner and Toga here, as all three of them had expressed reluctance in carrying out said murder, only doing so because they didn't exactly have a choice in the matter. This reluctance will also be playing a role later as well, especially when Dabi, Spinner and Toga are offered another job, with said offering being extended to them by the mysterious benefactor himself/herself. I do not do things without reason here, folks.

…But more to the point. The next chapter will see the usual students at U.A. deal with stuff following a math exam, with a few things discussed by teachers occurring in the background. The chapter will hint at things to come, as well as continue a few bits that have happened thus far. But overall it will try to lighten the mood a little bit, especially with what Mina does in order to insure that she gets a passing grade on the math exam.


	28. Chapter 28

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter twenty-eight: The math exam

Izuku Midoriya was eating a small breakfast at the island table in the kitchen on the ground floor of Heights Alliance, the dorm building for U.A.'s class 1-A students. Sitting with the green-eyed boy was his good friend Tenya Iida who, like Izuku, was eating some breakfast. "I'm not sure about you, Midoriya, but I feel very confident about the math exam we have to take today," the class rep of 1-A remarked.

Izuku nodded in agreement with Tenya, chewing and swallowing a mouthful of food before speaking. "I'm not worried about it either, Tenya. I've always done well in my academics, as it was something that I had before I got-" Izuku stopped short, carefully choice his words as he realized he almost let slip the secret of One For All. "…My quirk in really late."

"Ah yes," Tenya remarked in an understanding tone as he nodded once, having fallen for Izuku's excuse, "You are an example of what quirk specialists call a 'late bloomer'." The class 1-A rep patted Izuku on the back. "And I, for one, am glad for that. I don't know what all the lot of us also in 1-A would do if you never got your quirk. All of that aside, you've become someone that I'd like to consider a trusted friend and confidant, so either way I'm glad for the company."

The green-haired cinnamon roll smiled a bit, grateful that someone appreciated having his friendship. Izuku nodded once to Tenya. "…Thanks for saying that, Tenya. I can't really begin to tell you how much it means to-"

"Out of the way! Out of the way!" Shinso's loud warning came from the stairs leading up to the upper floors of the dorm building, cutting Izuku off. Curiously, Izuku and Tenya looked over to see Hitoshi Shinso, one of five students placed into 1-A due to the recently increased need for as many heroes as possible, quickly escort a hunched-over Tsuyu towards the front door leading out of the dorm building.

Sakaki Yamamaya, another one of the five new students placed into class 1-A after she had transferred from her previous hero school Vulcan High, followed along but stopped short and remained in the living room area after she watched Shinso rush the frog girl out of Heights Alliance. Izuku and Tenya, both wondering just what was going on, got up and walked over to the fat cat girl of U.A. and asked her.

"Oh, Tsuyu threw up, and she looked a bit green in the face." Sakaki gestured to where Shinso led Tsuyu out of Heights Alliance. "Hitoshi is taking her to go see Recovery Girl."

"Oh geez, I hope Tsuyu will be okay," Izuku remarked in a worried tone.

Tenya nodded in agreement. "Indeed, Midoriya. I myself hope that she will recover, but given that she threw up and according to Sakaki is green in the face, chances are that Tsuyu will be in no condition to take the math exam today." Tenya crossed his arms over his chest, a look of mild concern on his face. "It's bad enough that Uraraka will be missing the math exam for reasons we have yet to hear of, but for another one of our classmates to miss it as well?"

"Oh, you mean the big math exam we all have to take?" Sakaki said, getting the two boys to turn to face her. The fat cat girl nodded once when Izuku and Tenya were looking right at her. "Yeah, all of us in 1-A have to go to that special big classroom with everyone in 1-B to take the math exam under Nemuri-sensei. It will be a bit wild with all fifty of us in there."

Tenya gave Sakaki a serious look. "…At this point, I fear it may only be forty-eight out of the combined fifty between 1-A and 1-B."

Gently shaking her head, Sakaki said, "Either way, a whole lot of us are going to be there. I hope that Nemuri-sensei doesn't mind having to put up with having to look after all of us."

"You know, that reminds me," Izuku remarked in a wondering tone, "Why is Nemuri-sensei, who is our modern hero art history teacher, running the math exam when Ectoplasm-sensei is our math teacher? I mean, wouldn't he be a better choice?"

"Oh, Aizawa-sensei told me and Hitoshi that Ectoplasm-sensei will be out helping him, a few other teachers and Principal Nezu with something big that's coming up soon," Sakaki explained, "Nemuri-sensei was the only teacher that could be spared to run the big joint math exam, so the job was given to her."

Izuku and Tenya, the latter likewise also wondering why the actual math teacher wasn't running the big joint math exam, both nodded in understanding. To his fellow classmates in 1-A, Tenya said, "Well either way, we ought to get heading towards the classroom where we're taking the math exam. It wouldn't do if we're late or, heavens above forbid, miss the exam entirely." Izuku and Sakaki both nodded in agreement as the followed Tenya out of Heights Alliance and over to the main building for U.A.

* * *

When Izuku, Tenya and Sakaki reached the door leading into the classroom where the big joint math exam for 1-A and 1-B was being held, they met class 1-B student Akuma Giratina by the door. Akuma, a former Vulcan High student like Sakaki, gave a friendly enough but still overall indifferent hello to the boys. Sakaki, who the Satanist of U.A. was more familiar with, got some better treatment from him.

Izuku and Tenya watched Akuma follow the fat cat girl into the classroom where the big joint math exam was being held. "It would make sense for there to be some degree of camaraderie between Giratina and Yamamaya," Tenya remarked as he pushed his glasses up a bit, "They did both use to attend Vulcan High before they enrolled here."

Izuku nodded in agreement with class 1-A rep, but before the green-haired cinnamon roll could get a word out, he was cut off by the familiar voice of Bakugo calling out. "Oi, Deku! Don't you and Glasses here usually roll with Round Face, Half-n-half and Frog Face? Where the hell are those three?"

Izuku looked over to see Bakugo come walking up to him and Tenya; as per usual, the explosive teen was accompanied by Kirishima, Kaminari and Sero, although the other usual Baku-squad member, Mina, wasn't in eye sight at the moment. "Umm, Kacchan, Uraraka is still out for some reason that Tenya and I don't know anything about, and Shinso had to escort Tsuyu to go see Recovery Girl because she threw up and looked green in the face."

"And Todoroki left ahead of time for the math exam," Tenya informed Bakugo. The speed quirk boy gestured to the door leading into the classroom where said exam was going to take place. "He's probably already in there."

Bakugo scoffed in an indifferent tone. "Whatever. Doesn't make a lick of difference as far as I'm concerned." Jerking a thumb at himself, Bakugo smirked a bit in amusement. "Not only am I the baddest motherfucker around, but I'm also one of the smartest, in case any of you extras don't recall that little factoid about me. I'll be making this math exam my bitch, mark my words."

"Alright, Baku-bro! Your manly confidence is inspiring!" Kirishima cheered, "It's like this math exam doesn't faze you or Mina at all!"

Hearing from Kirishima that Mina, of all people, was not worried about the math exam caught the attention of Izuku and Tenya, with the latter taking the initiative to ask. "I take it that Mina had applied herself to her studies before the exam today?"

Jerking a thumb over his shoulder, Kaminari replied, "She seems unnaturally calm with the math exam looming over our heads. Although it might be due to how she doesn't look all that well."

Tenya sighed in a resigned tone. "Ah, she stayed up late to study." The class 1-A rep, followed by Izuku, made his way through the boys to see if Mina was okay. "You know, Mina," Tenya began as he called out to the pink-skinned girl, "As admirable as it is to apply yourself to your studies, staying up until the wee hours of the morning cannot be good for your heal-" Tenya, as well as Izuku, stopped short when they both saw Mina.

…Or rather, Tsuyu's little brother Samidare dressed up as Mina.

The ten-year-old boy with a mild frog theme wore a copy of the U.A. girl's uniform that was as close to his size as can be managed even though the skirt reached a little past his knees, black knee socks that on him reached up past his knees, a pair of brown shoes that were the only thing size appropriate for him, all areas of his skin were covered in pink-colored body paint, he wore a pink fluffy wig plus a horned headband that had two little yellow horns, and a pair of sunglasses.

Both Izuku and Tenya looked at 'Mina' with shocked, unbelieving looks on their respective faces. In fact, the latter gestured to 'Mina' with his usual hand-chopping gesture. "This isn't our classmate Mina," the class rep of 1-A said, his tone knowing and dry, "But rather an elementary school-aged boy dressed up as her."

Bakugo scoffed in a mildly annoyed tone, clearly not believing Tenya. "The fuck crawled up your ass this morning and died, Four Eyes? That is very clearly Pinky right there. The only reason why she looks a bit off is because, just as you had said, she stayed up late to cram for the math exam we're about to do." The explosive teen's eyes narrowed as he gazed as Tenya. "It's pretty fucking rude to insult Pinky's appearance after she stayed up so late to study."

"Umm, Kacchan," Izuku began in a mildly confused and wondering tone, "Tenya's right. In fact, you should have recognized that 'Mina' here is actually just Tsuyu's little brother Samidare dressed up as Mina. You remember meeting him back when you, me and Todoroki did the round of emergency internship under Todoroki's father, remember?"

"Wow, Deku, I can't believe you," Bakugo said as he turned to face the green-haired cinnamon roll. Without looking at 'Mina', Bakugo gestured to 'her' while keeping his eyes on Izuku. "I have no clue what is up with you and Four Eyes right now, but this is clearly Pinky, not Frog Face's awesome little brother."

"Yeah, Baku-bro's got a point," Kirishima remarked, "You two got to calm down." As the boys were all talking, Yaoyorozu came walking over, having come for the math exam but stopping when she saw the large crowd gathered outside of the exam room.

"Hey Mina," the rich girl greeted casually as she came up to the group, failing to recognize that 'Mina' was actually Samidare in a disguise, "Ready for the math exam today?"

"Yaoyorozu, please tell me you aren't falling for this as well," Tenya said, drawing the vice-rep of class 1-A's attention to him.

Yaoyorozu, with a curious look, asked, "…What do you mean, Tenya?"

"That isn't really Mina," Tenya said, "In fact, that's not even a high school-aged girl! That's an elementary school-aged boy disguised as Mina!"

Kaminari, shrugging in a confused manner, remarked to his wealthy classmate, "I'm guessing that Tenya and Izuku just have the pre-exam jitters and are partly hallucinating." The electric quirk boy crossed his arms over his chest, shrugged his shoulders again. "I don't blame them for being nervous. I am, too."

Yaoyorozu, as she addressed Izuku and Tenya, said, "Kaminari's got a point, boys. There is no need to be so nervous that you start seeing things." The wealthy girl then turned to regard 'Mina', giving 'her' a bit of consideration. "…Although now that you and Izuku mention it, Tenya, something about Mina does seem a bit off."

Both Izuku and Tenya breathed a sigh of relief, with Tenya even giving a bit of a cheer. "But I'm still not entirely convinced one way or the other," Yaoyorozu declared when she turned back to face her fellow studious classmates, "Luckily, I have a sure fire way to confirm the truth." Turning back around, Yaoyorozu put her focus back on 'Mina', giving 'her' a serious look of consideration. "…Mina, what's your opinion of Mineta?"

Instead of actually saying any words, 'Mina' simply blew a raspberry, with that being the only answer that 'she' would give on the matter. Apparently, this was good enough for Yaoyorozu. With a nod and a calm, satisfied smile, Yaoyorozu turned back around to face the boys. "That confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is the real Mina." Turning to face the door leading into the math exam room, the wealthy girl said, "Well then everyone, if you all will excuse me, I've got to get inside and find a seat."

The boys all watched as Yaoyorozu walked into the math exam room, Izuku and Tenya both with looks of sheer disbelief on their respective faces. Bakugo and his group followed after their wealthy classmate, with the explosive teen shooting an amused smirk at Izuku and Tenya before he disappeared into the classroom. After they both resolved to bring this matter to the attention of classmates of theirs that they can trust later, Izuku and Tenya both made their way into the exam room so that they could take the big join math exam.

* * *

"Alright, kids," Nemuri said as she stood in the front of the classroom, "I just got it from some of the staff members here at U.A. that your schoolmate Uraraka won't be able to join us as she is still out. Additionally, Tsuyu woke up sick and Shinso, due to lack of available staff to keep an eye on Tsuyu, was assigned the duty of watching over her until more school staff is available, so both of them won't be able to make it either. They will be allowed to make up the exam later."

Izuku and Tenya curiously looked around, noticing that many of their trusted friends were all absent from the exam. Surely Shinso, Uraraka and Tsuyu would be able to recognize that 'Mina' was actually just Samidare disguised as the pink-skinned girl. Tsuyu especially, given that the ten-year-old boy is her younger brother.

Izuku and Tenya also figured that their friend Todoroki, as well as Izuku's friend in 1-B Juzo, would both recognize whatever ploy that Mina was trying to pull off by dressing Samidare up as her. Unfortunately for Izuku and Tenya, Todoroki was distracted because Reiko, Todoroki's crush-turned-girlfriend, was seated right next to the two-tone boy, and Juzo was too focused on his exam to pay much mind to anything else that was going on.

Without anything that they could do, Izuku and Tenya both decided to just focus on their work in the math exam. As both of them do well in their academics, the math exam wouldn't pose all that much of a problem to either boy. As such, when Nemuri gave the signal to begin, everyone in the classroom got to work on the math exam.

…

"Well everyone," Nemuri said after the last of the exams were collected and graded when everyone had finished, "I have to say that I am impressed. I was expecting, given what I was told about all of you by both Aizawa and Sekijiro, that there would be at least one failure among the lot of you. But even the lowest score among all of the exams is a seventy-eight, more than enough to pass." Gently applauding the combined lot of 1-A and 1-B students, Nemuri said as she clapped, "You all deserve a pat on the back."

Everyone in the classroom cheered, with Bakugo's friends cheering the most; Kaminari made a joke at himself about how his exam must be the one with the seventy-eight. As a side note, both Izuku and Tenya noticed 'Mina' whip out and put on a pair of noise-canceling headphones when the cheering started. Both studious boys took a note of this, deciding that it may be a point that they could make use of later.

After the class settled down, Nemuri held up a few of the exams. "As a matter of fact," the eighteen only hero went on, "Some of you actually got perfect scores." Looking at the math exams that she held, Nemuri said, "Congratulations to Yaoyorozu, Midoriya, Iida and Ashido! You all got a one-hundred!" Nemuri then gestured for the students that got perfect scores to come on up to the front of the classroom so that everyone else could cheer for them.

When the four who all got perfect scores reached the front of the classroom, Juzo raised a hand and said, "Uhh, Nemuri-sensei?" Pointing to where 'Mina' stood on Yaoyorozu's left thus putting 'her' on the far right (if you're facing the group of students who got a perfect score), the softening quirk boy of class 1-B said, "Please tell me that you aren't going to fall for this. That clearly isn't Ashido. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's the kid who Artemis is best friends with simply dressed up as Ashido."

"Although there's a lot I wouldn't put past those cretins in 1-A, I do believe that even they wouldn't stoop so low as to show such a lack of academic integrity," Monoma said as he turned to regard Juzo, a look of mild disbelief on his face.

"No, Juzo's right, and thank goodness that Midoriya and I aren't the only ones here who see what's going on," Tenya said. The class 1-A rep pointed to where 'Mina' stood as he said to the eighteen only hero, "With all due respect, that is not the real Mina."

Hagakure, from where she sat next to Ojiro in the classroom, stood up at her desk. "Boys, that is clearly Mina, and I have no clue what makes you all think that's an imposter who's just dressed up as her."

"Wait a minute here, I have a way to determine for sure if that's the real Mina or not," Kyoka said. The rock music lover turned her attention to where 'Mina' stood at the front of the classroom before calling out to her. "Hey Mina! What's your opinion of Mineta?" Instead of saying actual words, 'Mina' merely blew a raspberry at the mere mention of the infamous pervert, just like 'she' did earlier when she asked the same question by Yaoyorozu. Satisfied, Kyoka said, "Yeah, that's the real Mina."

"Oh come on!" Mineta exclaimed, clearly unamused that people were using peoples' displeasure with him as a way to tell who's a fake and who's real.

* * *

After everyone left the math exam room, Izuku and Tenya were met up by Juzo and Artemis, the former of which looked mildly suspicious but overall just plain confused. "Yo Izuku, dude, what the hell is that pink girl in your class up to?"

"I have no clue, Juzo," the green-eyed boy replied, "Hopefully the real Mina will be willing to talk about whatever it was that she was up to."

"Yeah, I'd like to know why Ashido decided to dress my main man Samidare up as her and have him take the math exam in her place," Artemis remarked in a casual tone as he talked to the other three boys, "Although now that you mention it, I can't really blame her since I know that the little dude is a wizard at math, and the fact that he got a perfect score for Ashido shows that using him to take the exam for her was a rather smart move on her part." After he finished his last bit there, the exoskeletoned boy saw that Izuku, Tenya and Juzo were all looking at him with wide-eyed looks of surprise. "…What?"

"You also knew that it was really Samidare and not Mina?" Izuku said, "Artemis, why didn't you say anything with me, Tenya and Juzo?"

Artemis gave a bit of a belly laugh as he said, "Because it was fucking hilarious how everyone else was completely fooled by Samidare's disguise! Ah ha, ha!" Izuku, Tenya and Juzo all looked at Artemis with looks of disbelief on their respective faces. Luckily for the three boys that thought to actually try to do something about Mina's lack of academic integrity, the three of them all thought to take pictures of Samidare dressed up as Mina with their smartphones for later evidence.

Artemis took a picture of it as well, but not for the same reason as Izuku, Tenya and Juzo.

* * *

Sometime after lunch, Izuku and Tenya, who were joined by Juzo during lunch, learned that Shinso and Tsuyu were able to take the exam after Tsuyu was judged as having recovered well enough to do so. Both Shinso and Tsuyu also passed the exam, but that wasn't what was on the mind of the three boys when they met up with Shinso and Tsuyu, the latter still looking a bit green in the face but not enough to debilitate her anymore.

"Tsuyu, you need to see this," Izuku said with a hint of knowing suspicion in his tone as he took out his smartphone, pulled up the picture he took earlier, and turned his phone around for both Tsuyu and Shinso so see.

Both Shinso and Tsuyu went a bit wide-eyed in surprise when they saw the picture that was on the green-eyed boy's phone, with Tsuyu being the first to take the initiative as she pointed at the picture on Izuku's phone. "…Why is my younger brother dressed up as Mina?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that we need to show this to Aizawa-sensei," Shinso said, his tone showing that he agreed with his frog-like classmate. He turned his attention from the photo on Izuku's phone up to Izuku and the other boys themselves. "I have no idea what the hell Mina was thinking, but there is no way that we can let her get away with it."

The three boys all let out a sigh of relief, with Tenya saying, "Thank goodness we aren't the only ones who sees what's wrong." As Izuku, Tenya and Juzo were talking to Tsuyu and Shinso, they were met up by Bakugo and his squad; the real Mina was with the group, meaning that she had at some point switched back with the kid she had disguised as her.

Seeing one of her fellow girls in 1-A, Mina waved her hand and flashed a smile. "Hey, Tsuyu! The boys here told me you missed the exam with everyone else and had to take a backup with Shinso since he was made to look after you because a lot of U.A. staff members were busy. Are you feeling better?"

"Mina, why did you dress my younger brother up as you?"

The acid quirk girl was surprised by the question, or rather she looked/acted surprised. "I have no idea what you're talking about, Tsuyu," Mina defended, "I was there in the math exam room, same as everyone else."

"Yeah, Frog Face," Bakugo remarked, "Hell, your boyfriend Bird Head believes us that Mina was there taking the exam with us, even though his shadow creature doesn't."

Tsuyu was about to say something, but she was cut off when Aizawa came walking over to the group. "I'm going to be needing you all to head back to the classroom," the underground hero said in a tone showing that he was allowing no room for arguing, "Something came up that the staff here and I believe relates to both the recent attack on U.A. and the incident that occurred back during our class's field trip where those men threatened Uraraka. We'll be going over a few details in class later." Turning to regard Juzo, Aizawa said, "Sekijiro will probably inform you and your classmates about it himself since he's one of the pros that is also on the investigative team, so it's best that you go and see him, Honenuki."

"Aizawa-sensei, you've got to see the photo that Midoriya's got on his phone," Shinso said, piquing Aizawa's interest just enough to encourage the underground hero to look closely at the photo on Izuku's phone. Aizawa considered the photo for a few moments before he straightened himself back out. Turning to face Mina, Aizawa walked up to her and, to the surprise of all of the 1-A students that were present, pressed the back of his right hand against Mina's forehead, as if he was checking for her temperature.

"…Hmm, it does feel a tad warm." The underground hero turned to face the other U.A. students, pointed to Izuku's phone. "I'm guessing why Ashido looks a bit off to me in that photo is due to how she was probably getting over a bit of a fever at the time the photo was taken." Turning to regard his pink-skinned student, Aizawa said, "I hope that you're feeling well enough to return to class when I have to go over some facts with everyone."

With a bit of a playful smirk, Mina gave her homeroom teacher something of a playful salute. "I'm ready and rearing to go, Aizawa-sensei!" Satisfied with that, Aizawa turned and walked off to go over to his classroom, leaving the students that did not fall for Mina's scheme to look on at his departing form in shocked surprise. Shinso in particular was in disbelief as even his mentor had fallen for the acid quirk girl's ploy hook, line and sinker.

Bakugo and his squad took off after Aizawa, intending to return to class for whatever it was that the underground hero wanted to go over with all of his students in 1-A; Mina, as she left with the boys, shot Izuku and the others who didn't fall for her ploy a knowing look before she quickly turned to leave with the rest of her group. After the Baku-squad had left, Izuku and the others all merely shook their heads in disappointment.

Gesturing towards the doors leading out of the cafeteria, Izuku said in a tone of resigned defeat, "Well, we might as well head back to class. Aizawa-sensei did say that there was something that relates to both the recent attack here on U.A. grounds and the incident during the field trip where those men tried to harm Uraraka." The students from 1-A all nodded in agreement with Izuku, and Juzo told them that he'd see them later as he had to head back to 1-B. Waving the softening quirk boy good-bye, Izuku and the others from his class all returned to their homeroom.

END, CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Author's notes;

This chapter was my attempt to create a funny, light-hearted bit meant to lighten the mood after what occurred in the previous chapter. I know full well that many of the people who fell for what Mina did with Tsuyu's little brother in this chapter would not really fall for it, but that's where part of the humor of this chapter stems from. Anyway, the next chapter will get back to all of the seriousness that is going on in the current arc. Those who don't know the reason for a certain thing that was noted in this chapter will be learning the reason why said thing occurred, and when they do learn of it, they will be appropriately heartbroken.

Izuku, in particular, will be very empathetic.


	29. Chapter 29

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter twenty-nine: Time of grief

In the homeroom class for 1-A, Izuku noticed that, with the exception of the still-absent Uraraka, all of the students in the class were present, including the five new additions that were added to the roster due to the increased need for there to be as many heroes as possible in light of recent major events. Izuku and the others milled around a bit as Aizawa had to leave to pick something up for the debriefing he had to go over with them. As such, it gave him time to talk to some of his friends, including Todoroki.

"Sorry, Midoriya," the dual natured-quirk boy remarked, "But Reiko was sitting right next to me in the exam room, so I was understandably too distracted to pay attention to whatever scheme you say that Mina was trying to pull off or whatever." Izuku, without missing a beat, took out his smartphone, pulled up a certain picture that he took, and showed it to Todoroki, who arched a wry eyebrow upon seeing it. "…No way in hell is that Mina," Todoroki said, "In fact, that looks like Tsuyu's kid brother who is terrified of my father dressed up as Mina."

Izuku, as well as Tenya and Shinso who were with Izuku, let out relieved sighs. "Well thank goodness that you believe us as well, Todoroki," the green-haired cinnamon roll said, "I think that I might have actually cried out in frustration if you didn't believe me."

"Midoriya, I'm a lot more observant that others give me credit for," Todoroki remarked. Pointing to where the photo was still pulled up on Izuku's phone, Todoroki continued, "But all of that is beside the point. Why did Mina dress Tsuyu's kid brother up as her, then had him take the math exam for her?" Tsuyu, when she heard someone mention her, came over to see what was up.

Tenya crossed his arms, a look of bemusement on his face. "What I would like to know is how so many people, including many who could be counted on to not have the wool pulled over their eyes, were so easily fooled by Ashido's little scheme."

Tsuyu looked like she was about to say something, but she was cut off when Aizawa returned to the classroom, prompting everyone to return to their desks as quickly as possible. Aizawa stood at his desk in the front of the classroom, looked around to make sure everyone was acting orderly. The underground hero gave a passing glance to the empty desk in the classroom that was normally occupied by Uraraka; he gave a mildly troubled sigh as his gaze passed by the gravity girl's desk before he focused his gaze on his other twenty-four students.

Aizawa cleared his throat a bit as he set up the laptop on his desk with a flash drive that he produced from his front right pocket. After a few brief moments, Aizawa had a file pulled up on the smartboard behind him and his desk. The slideshow style report was on the first slide, which said 'Ongoing investigation into group against Uraraka family' in big bold capital letters, as the underground hero began to address his students.

"Shinso, Hatsume, Mongoose, Yamamaya and Sirknight may not have a whole lot on this since they weren't in our class at the time of our recent field trip, so I'm going to have to take a bit of time to catch them all up on what happened during said field trip." To the five students he had mentioned by name, all of which sat in the back of the classroom conveniently enough, Aizawa said, "During the field trip that took place before the five of you were placed in this class, a pair of assassins tried to murder your classmate Uraraka. Those assassins were ultimately foiled, thanks partly to help from local quirked persons in Royal Woods where the field trip took place, including a young man who had charges dropped against him as a favor for his services in helping to track down Uraraka's would-be killers."

Shinso raised a hand at this, and Aizawa called upon his protégé. "Yeah, Midoriya gave me a bit of a run down on all of that, both how Uraraka was targeted by killers for some odd reason and about that one guy with the gold fire quirk that Mineta led into beating up a lot of the guys here, Midoriya himself included in that lot."

Aizawa nodded in confirmation to Shinso's remark, partly thankful that Shinso didn't mention the true nature of the guy's gold fire quirk in the middle of class. Focusing on the parts that relate to the attempt on Uraraka's life during the field trip, the underground hero debriefed his class on a few points concerning both the incident during the field trip (to give those that weren't there a better understanding) and how said incident was connected to the recent attack on U.A., where a bunch of mercenaries attacked during the recent school festival that was visited by students from the one local regular high school, Azu-Daioh High.

Bakugo, getting a tad impatient with all of this beating around the bush, scoffed a bit. "So what does all of this have to do with this debriefing, Aizawa-sensei?"

Letting out a resigned sigh, Aizawa remarked, "I was just getting to that, Bakugo." Aizawa then clicked his laptop's mouse button to move the slideshow style debriefing to the next slide, which to the immediate alarm of Izuku and other friends of his and Uraraka's in the class had a profile picture of Mrs. Uraraka, the gravity girl's mother. Aizawa, without turning around to look at the smartboard behind him, pointed to where the picture of Uraraka's mom was up.

"Your classmate Uraraka's mother, who is shown here, was found lying in a pool of her own blood in her family's kitchen, her throat slashed. This was two days ago, on the same day that the villain Trapezius Head Gear escaped police custody while on transport to Tartarus and went on a rampage at the local mall before being recaptured, even though the two events are unrelated." The underground hero gave his shocked-looking students (all of them, yes even _Bakugo_, were all shocked to hear what happened) a serious look that carried a hint of resigned sadness. "In case any of you were wondering why Uraraka was absent, well here you go."

The students of 1-A were reeling a bit from hearing the news about how Uraraka's mother was found murdered in her own home. Izuku was particularly shocked, as he prayed that none of his classmates had to go through what he went through when his father was killed by unknowing police during a secret undercover job over in the United States. Hearing that one of his closest friends was now suffering much the same way he had suffered not all that long ago, especially since Uraraka's mom was an innocent civilian when you get down to it, made the green-eyed boy's heart ache in empathy for the gravity girl.

Izuku was already thinking on what he should say to Uraraka in her time of grief when his thoughts were interrupted by Aizawa continuing on with the slideshow style debriefing. "Due to a certain bit of evidence that was found at the scene of the crime, both the police and the pro heroes that are helping them with the investigation have reason to believe that the murder of your classmate Uraraka's mother was carried out by the same group that was aiming to kill Uraraka herself." Aizawa clicked the laptop's mouse to go to the next slide.

A number of the students in 1-A all gasped in shock when they saw a pocketknife pinned into the wall, pinning up a sheet of paper that simply said '_**YOU'VE BEEN WARNED**_' in big bold capital letters. The slide after that one showed both the pocketknife and the note in separate evidence bags, laying out on the surface of a table; the note in its bag was unfolded and showed what was written on it.

Seeing that all of his students were reeling in shock, Aizawa let out a knowing sigh. "Given the evidence that was recovered from the scene," the underground hero began, "As well as the two connected attacks that were both aimed to eliminate your classmate Uraraka, the police and pro heroes are all working with the theory that the group that is slash was aiming to kill Uraraka is behind the murder of her mother." Aizawa then clicked the laptop's mouse to move things on to the next slide, which showed a crying Uraraka being hugged by her similarly grieving father.

"Now we get to the part that involves the lot of you." Everyone in class turned to regard Aizawa, noticing the resigned sympathy in his expression. Seeing such a look on Aizawa's face was rather rare, given the man's history. "Many of the heroes that are lending aid to the police in the ongoing investigation are many of the pros that you kids tend to intern under. As such, don't be surprised if your mentor heroes have you assist with the investigation at some point."

Tsuyu held up a hand, and Aizawa called upon her. "I can very much see Ryukyu ask me and Eunice to help her investigate since Uraraka is also one of her interns kero."

Aizawa nodded in agreement with the frog girl's remark, understanding where it came from. "Aside from helping your hero mentors with investigations in this matter if you're called upon to do so, there is something else that you all need to consider." Aizawa jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing out the picture of Uraraka and her dad, which was still up on the smartboard. "One of your classmates is grieving right now, grieving because she just lost a loved one. She's going to need as much support from all of you as you can spare."

"Aizawa-sensei," Mina remarked as she raised her hand, her tone sounding a bit sad because of what she and the others just learned, "This…isn't exactly our first time in showing a grieving classmate that we're all here if they need it. We know what to do, and we intend to do it." Izuku, knowing that the pink-skinned girl was talking about him, nodded silently in agreement. Granted, Izuku was still disappointed in Mina given how she not only cheated on the recently completed math exam but how exactly she did so, but Mina still had a point.

The pink-skinned girl was also right in how Uraraka, given that she had lost her mother, was going to need the love and support of everyone in 1-A. Izuku, remembering what happened when he lost his father, was pretty sure that all of 1-B would get in on offering their condolences to the gravity girl. All of the new students in 1-A and 1-B, as well as the Big Three, would also be there for Uraraka in her time of grief. Izuku was glad that his friend had so many people who were all going to be there for her.

Just as they were for him.

* * *

The small home where Uraraka and her dad lived wouldn't be enough to hold all of the guests that were expected to come over after a funeral service was held a week after Uraraka's mom was found, so Mitsuki, when she was informed by her son and her boyfriend what had happened, declared that things would be held at her place, since she did get the house in the divorce from her ex-husband.

Granted, things were a bit on the crowded side, what with a combined fifty U.A. first years, three U.A. third years, two U.A. teachers and a number of pro heroes (at least one being retired) all there, things still went pretty smoothly. Mr. Uraraka, as he stood with Mitsuki, Inko, Aizawa, Hizashi, Sekijiro and Toshinori, looked to be a bit overwhelmed by all of the love and support that he and his daughter were being shown.

"This…" the Uraraka patriarch said in a tone of slight disbelief, gently shaking his head as he saw what all was going on. Turning to face the other adults, Mr. Uraraka said, "…I simply don't know what to say, everyone."

"You could, in a way, consider it as one of the perks that comes with your daughter being a growing part of the hero community," Toshinori remarked. The former symbol of peace gestured to where all of the girls in 1-A and 1-B, plus Nejire of the Big Three, were in a group hug with Uraraka in the middle of the group. Toshinori lowered his arm that he used to gesture with, turned his attention to face Mr. Uraraka. "We take care of our own."

Mr. Uraraka smiled a bit, knowing what Toshinori was getting at. The widowed man then turned his attention to a table upon which a wide variety of baked goods were sat. "Those Rikido and Tamaki boys sure pulled out all the stops in making all of those baked goods over there for me and Ochaco."

"Well it is a custom to bring food to grieving families when they lose a loved one," Inko pointed out to Mr. Uraraka, "Something similar happened when I lost Hisashi." Aizawa, who noticed that Hizashi looked to be about to say something that probably would have been stupid to the full-bodied woman, quickly stopped the cockatiel-haired pro hero before he could get one word out.

It wasn't until Aizawa and Hizashi calmed down when Mitsuki asked something that was on her mind. "Hey, I got it from both my brat and my bae that your wife's murder is believed to be connected to both incidents where people tried to kill your kid," the ashy-haired woman said to Mr. Uraraka. Arching a wry eyebrow in a sigh of piqued interest, Mitsuki said to the widowed man, "Sorry if asking this right now isn't the most appropriate thing to do in the world, but who in the hell did you and your family piss off?"

Mr. Uraraka looked a bit surprised by Mitsuki's question. "Excuse me?"

"There were two attempts on your brat's life that thankfully both failed, and one on your wife which I'm very sorry was successful," Mitsuki pointed out. She crossed her arms over her chest, gave the man that she was addressing a serious look with a hint of knowing in it. "Call me what you may, but from where I stand it looks like someone's really pissed at you and your family for some odd reason, and wanted to make you guys pay for it."

"That's…actually a theory that the police and the pro heroes helping them with the investigation are working with," Sekijiro remarked, a bit surprised that a civilian woman like Mitsuki was able to piece things together. Granted, she did get a bit of info from Bakugo and Izuku, so that must help to explain a lot of things.

…

While the adults all conversed amongst themselves, the U.A. students all talked among themselves. "Wow, I still can't wrap my head around how another one of you first years lost a parent," Nejire said in a somewhat sad and clearly sympathetic tone as she and the other girls all talked to Uraraka. The lone girl of the Big Three gave her junior student a sympathetic look as she looked her right in the eyes. "We're all here you, Uraraka. Just call on us if you need it."

The gravity girl nodded once in acknowledgement, showing thanks for the support that she was being shown. "I…I still can't b-believe that m-my mom was murdered." The stammering in her wavering tone made it clear that Uraraka had not only cried at least once before, but that she may start up again at the drop of a hat. "I still can't b-believe that someone wanted t-to murder me." She looked up from the floor to all of the girls that were gathered around her, the look of sadness on her face clear as day. Uraraka, with tears welling up in the corners of her eyes, then asked the other girls something that took all of them by surprise.

"What did I do to deserve all of this?"

"Uraraka, you did _nothing_ to have this coming," Mina said, her tone firm and serious as he placed both of her hands on Uraraka's shoulders, keeping the gravity girl's focus on her. "You did nothing wrong, you got me? The people here who did do wrong are the fuckers that wanted to make things for you and your folks a living hell." The other girls all looked on as Mina, in her own way, was trying to reassure Uraraka.

More tears welled up in the corners of Uraraka's eyes as she, overwhelmed by all of the love and support that her fellow girls were showing her, began to softly cry, which elicited another group hug from the girls. Over a ways, some of the boys in 1-A and 1-B, as well as Tamaki and Mirio, looked on as the girls did what they were doing for Uraraka. Not one face among the boys that were looking on held anything other than sympathy for the gravity girl; Mirio in particular was crying just as much and just as hard, if not more so, than Uraraka. It was clear that the well-toned third year was quite the softie.

"…First a bunch of mercs try and fail to kill Round Face twice," Bakugo began, his tone carrying suspicion, "And now someone succeeded in eighty-sixing Round Face's mom on their first attempt." The explosive teen turned to regard Izuku, Todoroki, Shinso, Juzo and the crying Mirio. The look of suspicion on his face could not be mistaken for anything else. "Call me what you may, but Round Face's family has obviously pissed someone off big time. I mean, why else would there be so many attempts on their family?"

The boys (aside from Mirio who was unable to respond due to his crying) all looked at Bakugo with surprised expressions, a little shocked that even Bakugo would so blatantly talk about stuff as heavy as killings, both attempted and successful, at a post-service gathering for a funeral. But, when the initial shock wore off, a lot of the boys realized that Bakugo had brought up a logical, valid point in the case.

In fact, out of the boys that were with the explosive teen, only Izuku had thought of the possibility that the reason why there were attempts on Uraraka, why there was an attempt on her mother that sadly succeeded, is because the Urarakas did something to someone that said someone did not like at all. This made the green-eyed boy think on the matter. First off, whoever it was that tried to have the gravity girl eliminated over in Royal Woods, and later here back home in Japan, has the means to hire out a good number of mercenary killers to take care of the dirty work for them.

Izuku also heard that a few known villains that were seen on U.A. grounds during the recent attack on U.A., despite claiming not to be part of said attack, said that their group and the mercenary group both get a bit of their respective funding from the same source. This made the green-haired cinnamon roll think really hard; two notably large groups that are separate from one another, yet they both draw funds from the same source. This meant that whoever it was that was behind the attempts on Uraraka's life, the one successful attempt on her mom's life, had to be on the wealthier side of things.

Unfortunately for Izuku, he couldn't think of anyone who was both wealthy _and_ had a reason to want anyone in Uraraka's family dead. And that note that was found pinned to a wall with a pocketknife at Uraraka's family's place…that was something only someone who was a clear cut villain would want to leave, something that only they would make others doing their dirty work leave. From what the green-eyed boy was able to figure, whoever it was that had Uraraka and her folks in their crosshairs is a rather wealthy villain that wanted to do something to shake the hero community of Japan to its core by attacking an innocent hero-in-training and her family.

The only question now…is who?

* * *

The day following the service for Mrs. Uraraka, staff members of U.A. were in a meeting with one another. Nezu, who was leading the meeting, let out a troubled sigh. "It's very terrible what all the Uraraka family has gone through as of late. Ms. Uraraka's mother was murdered in her family's home by as of yet unknown assailants, and Ms. Uraraka herself was targeted twice, and let me be the first to say thank goodness both attempts on Ms. Uraraka had failed."

"We shouldn't rest on anything," Aizawa said, the seriousness in his tone obvious, "Sure, both attempts on Uraraka's life were foiled, but who is to say that whoever it is that has it out for her family won't try again, especially considering that their first attempt on Uraraka's mom had been successful?" The underground hero crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back in his seat. "We have to do a complete overhaul in security for all of U.A.'s students, as well as whatever we can spare for certain persons related to said students."

"That's easier said than done," Ken Ishiyama, aka the pro hero Cementoss, remarked to his co-worker and fellow pro hero, prompting Aizawa to turn to face him. Aizawa's eyes were on Ken as he (Ken) faced him (Aizawa). "The hero community in Japan is short-staffed as it is, what with all that we've been having to do since events such as the monster attack and the siege here at U.A. during the recent school festival. And all of that is in addition to what all we already have on our plates as pro heroes, in terms of our regular duties."

"As much of a pain in the rear as it is to realize, Ishiyama has a point there," Snipe remarked, his fingers locked with each other as his elbows rested on the arm rests of his chair, "The most we can do, from what I figure after looking at my copy of the debriefing of the situation, is call for a few additional pro heroes to be stationed here at U.A., as well as potentially get some additional security for Uraraka and her father since they are both still potential targets for whatever mangy varmint it is who wants to see them hang."

Nezu inhaled through his nose as he contemplated all the facts that he and the other U.A. staff members had. The quirked animal principal of U.A. looked at his own copy of the debriefing, went over a few of the figures in his vastly efficient mind. He sat his debriefing copy down at his place at the meeting table before he looked around to all of the other U.A. staff members that were here at the meeting with him.

Everyone of note was there; Aizawa, Hizashi, Ishiyama, Ectoplasm, Nemuri, Snipe, Higari, Sekijiro, and Toshinori were all there. Even U.A. staff members that weren't teachers, such as Recovery Girl, Hound Dog, No. 13 and, surprisingly enough, Lunch-Rush, were also at the meeting. Such a gathering made it clear that the current situation's climate was one of the most serious events that U.A. has ever had to deal with.

"…Snipe is correct, everyone," Nezu said finally after a few moments of consideration, making everyone turn to face their boss. The quirked animal principal of U.A. gave a troubled sigh before he went on. "According to the figures that we have in our budget, the most that we can expect to afford for the time being are four pro heroes for the job to act as auxiliary members of U.A.'s staff. While said auxiliary staff jobs are what the public will be made aware of, in truth the hired pros will be secretly acting as additional security for our students." Nezu gave everyone present a knowing look. "Ms. Uraraka, in particular."

Toshinori, a look of piqued curiosity on his gaunt face, picked up his copy of the debriefing and skimmed through it. "…Can U.A. really afford four pro heroes for the job you speak of, Nezu?"

"Provided that we pull from heroes ranked at number fifteen and below on the Hero Billboard Chart JP, yes," Nezu replied, "Any ranked fourteen to one are a bit out of budget for us, as heroes ranked that high need to be afforded more consideration, and thus more pay. Although if any of said heroes who are ranked that high are willing to take the job for what we're able to offer them, then I won't turn them down."

* * *

It was right after that meeting discussing how to increase security for the students of U.A. (with Uraraka being a highly protected student, given how she's been targeted as of late), that Nezu sent out the request for increased security for U.A., taking care not to let it slip to the public that it really was a call for increased security as opposed to the hiring of auxiliary staff members as what the job looks like. It would, after all, cause something of a panic in the public if they knew that U.A. had to request help from additional pro heroes to act as security for the students.

To the surprise of Nezu and the other current staff members of U.A., a fair number of notable pro heroes came by. Showing up with Mt. Lady to the 'interview' were Mirko and Ryukyu, two heroes that were currently ranked in the top ten. Other pros who showed up included Gang Orca, as well as Pixie-Bob of the Wild, Wild Pussycats. Nezu also noted with some mirth that Pixie-Bob and Ryukyu looked at each other briefly, their gazes narrowed at one another. The quirked animal principal figured that it was because both of them share the same first name of Ryuko.

After the pros that had shown up did all of the initial interview stuff, Nezu called a meeting with all of the staff members that he met with the previous day. "Well I would first like to remark that the interviews for the secret job were more than impressive," Nezu began, drawing hopeful looks out of everyone else. Nezu nodded once in confirmation as he picked up some papers that were from the interviews earlier. "It helps that all pros who showed up are willing to accept the pay that we can offer them while they are working the secret job."

"Have you picked any yet?" Aizawa asked his boss. A number of other U.A. staff members at the meeting all nodded to show that they were likewise eager to see if their boss had made any choices yet in regards to who to hire for the secret job.

The quirked animal principal nodded once in confirmation, a bit of an amused smile on his face. "As it just so happens, out of the four positions we need filled in order to meet the prerequisite need for increased security, I've already made three choices, with those being Mt. Lady, Ryukyu and Mirko." The members of U.A.'s staff all nodded in agreement, especially since this move grabbed two of the current top ten pro heroes.

Nemuri was particularly happy with the choice, as it grabbed three more women for U.A.'s staff; out of the current fourteen at the staff meeting, she was one of only three women, the other two being No. 13 and Recovery Girl. To be quite honest, the eighteen-only hero was starting to feel a bit outnumbered by all of the men that were staffed for looking after the hero course students. With a look of curiosity about who is going to fill the last spot, Nemuri looked over to Nezu.

"So Nezu, who do you have for the last position?" Piqued by Nemuri's question, Nezu looked at his packet of papers that he had brought with him to the meeting.

After looking it over, Nezu gave a shrug as he sat his papers back down before addressing everyone else at the meeting. "To be completely honest with you guys, I'm actually still trying to decide between Pixie-Bob and Gang Orca. Both seem to be very viable choices."

"Ooh, ooh, you ought to go with Pixie-Bob," Nemuri said, "She did well when Aizawa and Sekijiro took their students to the training camp that her group ran, and having her here will give us the potential to temporarily call in her teammates if we need the extra help."

"I was figuring that Gang Orca would be a better choice," Sekijiro remarked to everyone at the meeting, drawing a bit of an annoyed, pouting look out of Nemuri not that he saw it. Sekijiro gestured around at everyone, saying, "He's proven to be a friendly and reliable ally in times of trouble, and he's shown willingness to be hard on students when the need arises. We need more staff members here willing to be firm with the kids."

"Personally, I think that we already have plenty in that department, Sekijiro," Nemuri remarked as she crossed her arms over her chest, prompting the class 1-B homeroom teacher to turn to look at her. The eighteen only hero gave her co-worker a knowing look, with one of her eyebrows raised in a wry manner. "The last thing that the students here need is to think that U.A. is being turned into a boot camp to prep them for military service. Besides, Pixie-Bob's quirk, which lets her manipulate earthen material, has more versatility and combat potential than what Gang Orca has. If she were here during either the monster attack in the city or at the recent siege here, then Pixie-Bob would have proven to be invaluable."

"I have to agree with Nemuri on this one," Ishiyama remarked, drawing a mildly surprised look out of Sekijiro. Sensing that he was being looked at, the pro hero Cementoss turned in the right direction, saw Sekijiro looking at him. "Oh, come on, Sekijiro. Pixie-Bob can better fight off large groups of enemies than Gang Orca, and given how many times we've had to deal with large groups of enemies as of late, we could totally use someone better suited for fighting them off." Ishiyama leaned back in his seat. "Also, and I hope no one takes this the wrong way, but I believe that U.A. could use more of a woman's touch, and having more women join the staff would help with that."

"That is exactly what I was thinking!" Nemuri exclaimed as she gestured to Ishiyama with both of her hands, "Thank you for agreeing with me on this, Ishiyama!" The modern literature teacher of U.A. simply nodded once towards the eighteen only hero in acknowledgement of her thanks. Likewise, both No. 13 and Recovery Girl nodded in agreement with Nemuri and Ishiyama.

Sekijiro scowled a bit, gently shaking his head at the ridiculousness of it all. The 1-B homeroom teacher turned to face his counterpart that taught the 1-A homeroom class. "Aizawa, please tell me that you agree that Gang Orca is a better choice."

The underground hero considered the decision to choose between Gang Orca and Pixie-Bob. To be fair, and under normal circumstances, Aizawa couldn't care less about which choice was made on the matter. But something that was discussed at a past U.A. staff meeting sometime prior to the murder of Uraraka's mom suddenly popped into Aizawa's mind, coming back from the deepest reaches of his memory.

It was something about a future event where a group representing a foreign high school would be coming to Japan, coming to U.A. Aizawa remembered certain facts about what was discussed way back when, and although he hoped that said certain facts wouldn't come to pass when the future event actually happens, he had a feeling of dread that at least one of said certain facts may very well end up playing out, although he silently prayed to Gilgamesh that none of said certain facts would end up popping up.

…But, if the specific certain fact that was on Aizawa's mind did end up cropping up, then it was best to prepare the first year brats, both his and Sekijiro's, for what may end up coming. And given the nature of said certain fact on the underground hero's mind, it played a very big role in his decision making process. Resolved in what he was going to say, Aizawa casually raised a hand, bringing it to about level with the side of his head.

"…If this ends up turning into a vote between Gang Orca and Pixie-Bob, then I'm going to vote for the latter of the two."

Nemuri was unable to help herself as she pumped her right fist into the air and gave a bit of a cheer, although No. 13 and Recovery Girl cheered in a more modest fashion (they calmly clapped their hands). Things more or less did end up becoming a vote, and out of the fourteen U.A. staff members at the meeting, only Sekijiro voted for hiring Gang Orca. As such, Nezu made the choice of Pixie-Bob as the fourth and final of the four new auxiliary staff members to be joining the U.A. faculty.

…

After the staff meeting was called to a close, Sekijiro met up with Aizawa outside of the meeting room. At the time when Sekijiro found him, Aizawa was talking to Toshinori and Hizashi. "And here I was thinking that you'd agree with me that having more disciplinarians on the U.A. staff, even if only as a cover for increased security for the students, would be a good thing to keep our respective brats in line."

"Normally, I'd agree with you that making sure the kids are kept in line is a priority, Sekijiro," the underground hero replied, a hint of resignation in his tone that did not escape Sekijiro's notice. But before the class 1-B homeroom teacher could comment on it, Aizawa continued on with what he was saying. "…But I believe that Pixie-Bob, with her quirk, is a better choice, both for the immediate need we're facing, as well as for future events."

What Aizawa had said just now about 'future events' caught Sekijiro's piqued interest. "What are you on about, Aizawa?"

"You recall how U.A. is expecting a group representing a certain high school over in the United States to visit us within a couple of weeks?" Aizawa asked as he opened a vanilla folder he was carrying. As the underground hero flipped through the papers within the folder, the others that were with him looked on in curiosity.

Sekijiro, a bit impatient with all of this leading around, gave a gruff scoff. "So what does that have to do with you voting for Pixie-Bob over the more logical-"

"I have a bit of a dreading feeling that _Visionquest_ may be one of the persons in the group that is slated to visit us in a few weeks."

Sekijiro, as well as both Hizashi and Toshinori, regarded Aizawa with wide-eyed looks of surprise on their respective faces. "Given how Pixie-Bob's quirk is rather similar in terms of principle to the quirk that Visionquest has, having our students do some sparring with Pixie-Bob may help them figure out some strategies that would help all of them out in the times to come." Aizawa turned to regard Sekijiro in particular. "That's why I cast my vote for Pixie-Bob instead of Gang Orca, in case you were wondering."

Sekijiro looked very much humbled by what Aizawa had explained. Similarly, Hizashi and (especially) Toshinori looked a bit worried about the potential of what the underground hero was talking about. The former Symbol of Peace voted for Pixie-Bob because he agreed that her quirk would be of more use in the long run (but not for the same reason Aizawa stated just now), and Hizashi voted for Pixie-Bob because he agreed with the ladies and Ishiyama that there needed to be more women on U.A.'s staff.

But…but after what Aizawa had pointed out, after what they (even Sekijiro) had come to realize, the move Nezu made of going with Pixie-Bob over Gang Orca was a rather brilliant one. The kids were going to be needing as much prep as possible, and with the plausible theory that was provided just now, all four of the men were thankful that it was Pixie-Bob who had made the cut and was slated to join them on U.A.'s staff.

END, CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Author's notes;

Look, look, I know that the move to eighty-six Mrs. Uraraka did not sit well with a lot of you, but it is still necessary in order to tell the story that is being told here. Besides, it's relevant to a sub-plot that started up back during the second arc of this story, and it will continue onwards well past this arc and the arc after that. Yes, I am planning that far ahead. Never let it be said that when I have something hot to work with, I do a half-assed job.

Anyway, the move to have additional pro heroes stationed at U.A. for extra security (although as far as the public will be aware they're there for non-security related auxiliary roles only) is also related to said sub-plot that began back in the second arc. They will be playing key roles later on, Pixie-Bob especially. However, before we get to see the four lucky ladies slated for the new posts at U.A. on their first day(s) on the job, there is one chapter that I want to get out of the way first. A chapter that I've been wanting to do ever since I got out the first chapter of this story. It'll be a bit of an emotional chapter to be sure, and one of the students in 1-A will be suffering a bit.

…But Aizawa will be damned if he left his protégé hanging out to dry.


	30. Chapter 30

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter thirty: I mean he's not my son, but he IS my son

Shota Aizawa was walking back from the grocery store one day in the late afternoon, sometime after classes at U.A. were over for the day. The underground hero was not alone in his walk back from the grocery store; following along closely behind Aizawa was Eri, a young girl that U.A. had taken in as of recent events. The role of caregiver for Eri had been given to Aizawa, who the young girl with the (currently very small) horn had taken something of an attachment to. It goes without saying that at this point, Eri was Aizawa's foster daughter.

"_Well_, _Loukar_," the underground hero thought as he carried a brown paper grocery bag in both arms, a hint of amusement in the words that he thought, "_It looks like you aren_'_t the only one with a foster kid anymore_."

Eri looked up at her foster father with a look of curious wondering in her eyes. "Hey, papa," Eri said, drawing Aizawa's attention, "What are you thinking about?"

Aizawa, who if he were being honest to himself was still not quite totally used to the idea of being a parent, even if it's a foster one, had a mildly embarrassed look on his face. "I…was just thinking about an old friend of mine who had a foster kid, is all."

The horned girl looked up at Aizawa in silence for a few moments before she gave a smile. It was a small one, but it was still there nonetheless; it was also very much adorable. "Oh, you mean sort of how like you're my papa now?"

The underground hero nodded once in confirmation, thankful that he didn't have to explain a lot to Eri while they were out in public. Something else that Aizawa didn't ever want to have to do out in public was run into one of his students from U.A. randomly in the streets, but that's what ended up happening when he and Eri turned a corner and nearly bumped into a mid-teens boy.

However, said mid-teens boy ended up being Hitoshi Shinso, one of the few brats of Aizawa's that he could say was okay. In fact, the brainwasher was something of a protégé to Aizawa, as he had trained him in his fighting style, as well as how to make use of much of the same tools that he had used in his ongoing career as a pro hero. The only thing about all of this that Aizawa could consider to be a downside was that, for some odd reason, Shoto Todoroki had somehow gotten it into his head that Shinso is his (Aizawa's) son.

"…_Midoriya _did_ warn me about Todoroki_'_s habit of seeing connections that aren_'_t really there_," Aizawa thought as he and Eri stopped and recognized that it was Shinso that they had bumped into. It was then that the underground hero got a good look at Shinso; the brainwasher was wearing his typical civilian/casual outfit, but to Aizawa's piqued interest, he was also wearing a pair of sunglasses, even though it was partly overcast right now, thus there was no need to be wearing sunglasses.

"Oh, Aizawa-sensei," Shinso greeted, his tone sounding the same as always. …To the casual observer, that it. Although Eri picked up on nothing and was in fact a bit amused to run into the teen that her papa had taken an interest in training, said papa himself was able to right away pick up on subtle hints in his protégé's tone. Hints that had set off at least one alarm inside Aizawa's head. Aizawa knew that something was up.

The underground hero, never one to ignore the alarms in his head when they went off, proceeded to get to the bottom of what was going on with his protégé, using his being Shinso's teacher as a cover to start up a conversation with Shinso to find out what it was about the brainwasher's tone that had set off those alarms. "The sunglasses, Shinso." Aizawa's tone gave Shinso no room to argue, and he seemed to have realized that. "Take them off. Now."

Shinso gave a resigned sigh as he reached up to the ear pieces of his sunglasses, grabbed them, and slowly pulled his sunglasses off. Aizawa had a dreading feeling about what he was going to see, but even when said suspicion was confirmed, he couldn't help but go a bit wide-eyed in shock. Similarly, Eri gave a surprised gasp when she saw what her papa was seeing; the horned little girl's first action was to run up to Shinso and throw her arms around him as high as she could reach so that she could give him a hug.

"Hitoshi." Aizawa's tone, although calm, did let slip a hint of concerned worry as he gestured to his right eye with his free hand, doing so in a way to point out that there was a lot of discolored bruising around Shinso's own right eye, although there was some bits of white cream smeared over some of the bruised area. Additionally, the right eyelids were somewhat closed, fluttering a bit between being fully closed and fully open, a sign that the bruised eye was still in pain a bit.

The brainwasher, with a bit of a guilty look on his face as he slipped his sunglasses back on, stood there as his mentor asked, "What happened?"

Shinso let out a bit of a resigned sigh as he dug his hands into the pockets of the jacket he wore. "…To be honest here, Aizawa-sensei, you're the second person who's seen this. The first was Sakaki when she applied the ointment to ease the sting of the bruising around my eye." Letting out another sigh, Shinso said, "I'm…not exactly comfortable talking about it, or the events that led up to it."

It was bad enough for Aizawa that one of his students had just very recently lost a parent, and potentially to the same group that is targeting said student herself. But the underground hero would be damned if he let another one of his students, especially one that he had put so much effort into no less, suffer as well. Without warning, Aizawa walked up to Shinso, handed the grocery bag that he had been carrying over to him.

"You're coming with me and Eri right now," Aizawa declared, giving his protégé no room to argue, "Also, contact Yamamaya if you can, and tell her to meet us at U.A." Shinso, with a bit of a surprised look on his face (if his eyebrows arching up a bit were any indication of that), ended up walking along behind Aizawa and Eri. The brainwasher's body language told an observant eye that he seemed a bit cowed by some of his experiences from the day so far.

…But there was also a hint of hope in Shinso's posture. After all, this was Aizawa-sensei who was taking charge here. If there was anyone who he could count on to fix things here, it was the underground hero himself.

* * *

Shinso, with Eri on his left, sat on a small sofa in the teacher's lounge over at U.A. as they watched something that Aizawa had put on for Eri. A few minutes after the Claymation movie began playing, Aizawa looked over when the door leading into the teacher's lounge opened. As such, Aizawa saw a mildly confused looking Hizashi walk in, leading a worried-looking Sakaki Yamamaya along behind him.

Jerking a thumb over his shoulder, Hizashi said to his co-worker, "Yamamaya said that Shinso and you called her to come here for something?"

"Thank you," Aizawa replied as he got up from the table he sat at, walked over to the open door leading into the teacher's lounge, and closed it.

Hizashi, as well as Sakaki, were a bit confused by Aizawa's actions, although the look on the fat cat girl's face showed that she had some idea what was going on. "…Hitoshi told me that this has to do with you seeing the bruising around his right eye?" Sakaki asked more than said, "Is he going to be alright, Aizawa-sensei?"

"Shinso," Aizawa said without answering Sakaki, turning to face where the brainwasher sat on the sofa and getting him to turn to face him. "Have you reported what happened to the authorities yet?" A hint of suspicion entered the underground hero's expression. "…Or does the bastard who hurt you have you too scared to act against them?"

Shinso looked down at the floor, a look of resigned guilt and shame in his eyes, not that they could be seen since he still wore those sunglasses. "…I've reported him multiple times in the past, but he always gets off in quick order. And every time he does, he's worse."

A chilling air settled on the room, even though there was no breeze coming in through the closed windows. "Hitoshi, I know that you couldn't tell me what happened when I helped to take care of your bruised eye," Sakaki said, "But surly you can at least trust the senseis here, can't you? I mean, both Aizawa-sensei and Hizashi-sensei _are_ pro heroes. There's a lot that they can get done to help you with whatever's going on."

"At one point, the pro hero Crust came in when the bastard was reported," Shinso said, ruefulness in his tone. The brainwasher turned to look away from everyone else. "He was, both at the time and still is, one of the top ten pro heroes." Shrugging his shoulders, Shinso went on, "Even then, the bastard _still_ got off, and he was worse than ever when he got his hands on me after that. What he did was part of why I was absent for that one seven day period shortly before the tournament between U.A. and Vulcan."

Sakaki shivered a bit out of fright over what her boyfriend was talking about, what his words were implying. Eri, partly due to her age and partly due to being distracted by the Claymation movie that was put on for her, wasn't paying a lot of attention to what was going on. But for Hizashi and especially Aizawa, they both could very clearly see the signs Shinso is currently displaying for what they were.

The brainwasher is a victim of _domestic abuse_.

"Shinso." The firmness in Aizawa's tone made Shinso flinch slightly, but he calmed down right away when he realized that not only was it Aizawa who was talking to him, but that looking at the underground hero, he saw that there was a look of concerned sympathy on his face, a look that told him that Aizawa was truly sorry for what had befallen him. There was also a hint of determination in Aizawa's eyes, determination that he acted on when he continued on with what he was asking of his protégé.

"Who did this to you?" He gestured to the bruising around Shinso's face.

"My father."

A grim look of confirmed suspicion appeared in the underground hero's expression.

…

Acting right away, Aizawa got into contact with Detective Tsukauchi to file a domestic abuse report, then he informed Nezu of what he had just gotten from Shinso. Aizawa was so wrapped up in his fury of what had befallen the brainwasher of 1-A that he had failed to notice that the quirked animal principal of U.A., in a very rare moment indeed, sounded shocked, a sign that his usually present demeanor had faltered upon hearing of what Aizawa had gathered.

Things were soon moved to Nezu's office, but not before Aizawa paused the Claymation movie he had playing for Eri since he had to take her with him. As Aizawa and a notably disgusted-looking Hizashi went over what exactly to do with Nezu, the door to the office opened, and in walked Tsukauchi, the police detective who is close friends with Toshinori Yagi (aka friggin' All Might). The former symbol of peace himself followed along, and Tsukauchi explained that he asked him (Toshi) to be here for this.

"You…you've got to be kidding me!" Toshinori practically exclaimed; he was so riled up by what he had been informed about what had been going on with Shinso that the former number one pro hero shot up into his muscle form for a few seconds. Pounding the surface of Nezu's desk with a strong fist, the temporary return of All Might looked absolutely furious, especially since he wasn't smiling. "How could something like this have gone on for as long as it has?!"

"It's not uncommon for victims of domestic abuse to be afraid to speak up about or against their abusers," Aizawa pointed out, drawing multiple pairs of eyes to him. He gave a resigned sigh as he proceeded to explain things as Toshinori deflated back to his true form. "I also got it that since Shinso's father ultimately goes back to abusing Shinso after every time he's reported, the boy's started to believe that any effort to put an end to his suffering will ultimately be pointless."

"It won't be pointless!" Sakaki declared defiantly, drawing everyone's attention to her. The look of firm, serious determination on the fat cat girl's face made it clear that she intended to protect her boyfriend from whatever may threaten him, even if she has to go up against his own father so she can carry out said promise. "No way am I going to just stand by and do nothing while some abusive asshole beats Hitoshi for no damn good reason! If I see that sorry bastard take even one step towards Hitoshi, I swear I will-"

"Yamamaya." A bit surprised when she heard someone call out to her, Sakaki stopped mid-rant and turned to see where Aizawa, who had called out to her, stood next to Hizashi. "There is no need for you to go so far like that," the underground hero informed his student, "The others here and I will handle things concerning Shinso's father." His expression softened up just a bit, a sign that he understood full well where Sakaki was coming from. "Shinso, however, will still need the support of people who will help him overcome his trauma. If you want to do something for him while he's going through this hot mess, then stay by his side and just be there for him."

The fat cat girl looked a bit stunned by what her homeroom teacher was telling her. Still, he made a valid point on how the teachers and other adults ought to handle confronting Shinso's father and see to it that he gets what's coming to him. Turning to face Tsukauchi, Aizawa asked when is the soonest they can expect Shinso's father to be brought in, to which the detective replied by saying that he took the appropriate actions the moment he got the information from the underground hero.

Indeed, by the time that Nezu began thinking of what is to be done with Shinso while his father is dealt with by the law, Tsukauchi got a call telling him that Shinso's father had been arrested just now, and was being brought in. An investigation was currently being launched into the Shinso domestic abuse case, with a few notable pro heroes pitching in to help out. From all that Aizawa and Hizashi were seeing, this case had to be in the bag, had to be a slam dunk.

…So why was Aizawa filled with a feeling of dread, emanating from the pit of his stomach?

* * *

"You've got to be kidding me!" Aizawa exclaimed angrily the next morning, a few minutes before the first classes of the day at U.A. Hizashi, along with a mildly frightened-looking Nemuri and a shocked-looking Sekijiro, watched as Aizawa, with a look of fury that all of the other present U.A. staff members did not think possible of their dark-dressed co-worker, shouted into the phone that he was using at the time.

Hizashi, Nemuri and Sekijiro watched on for a few more minutes until Aizawa ended the call, giving off a frustrated, exasperated sigh. Aizawa got up from where he sat at a table in the teacher's lounge, walked over to a wall and, in a surprising move, punched the wall as hard as he could manage while angrily shouting, "FUCKING DAMNIT!" at the top of his lungs. He was so enraged that he failed to notice that he scraped the skin on his right hand knuckles, as well as partly break at least one smaller knucklebone.

Luckily for Aizawa, Recovery Girl, who also watched on with a look of surprised shock as he had his enraged fuming, was also in the teacher's lounge, and a quick use of her quirk brought Aizawa's right hand back to peek condition, healing all damage. Although the physical pain that had affected Aizawa was healed, the raging storm of emotions that filled the underground hero at the moment was by no means similarly calmed. None of the other U.A. staff members had ever recalled seeing so much anger radiating from Aizawa, nor see it radiating from him in so loud and passionate a manner.

After Nemuri was able to get him to calm down, Aizawa proceeded to explain that, despite what all had been done the previous day, Shinso's father was able to get out of holding by paying bail. From what he had been told by Tsukauchi, due to the circumstances as well as how things ended up being put down when all was reported, there was nothing much that could be done when the brainwasher's father paid bail to get out of holding.

And that, as horrified as Aizawa was when he was informed about it, isn't even the worst part of the phone call that he just got done having with the aforementioned detective; no, the worst part was when Aizawa was informed that Shinso's father was arrested a few hours after he had paid bail to get out of holding. The abusive man was arrested the second time in that day because, after he had just gotten out on bail for domestic abuse on his son, decided to track down said son and, blaming him for getting him arrested, proceeded to straight up _physically assault_ Shinso.

The underground hero's protégé was alone when his father got to him, and was on the receiving end of what was by far the worst beating that he had ever received from his father. Shinso fought back, but that only fueled his father's wrath, made him beat on the brainwasher _worse_. When he was asked by his co-workers why Shinso didn't try using his quirk to incapacitate his abusive father, Aizawa explained to the others that Shinso's father has a quirk that makes him impervious to other quirks that would affect his mind in any way, such as brainwashing; the abusive man's quirk also blocked mind reading and the like, but that's beside the point.

However, Aizawa pointed out a few good facts about the incident last night that happened after Shinso's father made bail; the abusive man, despite being immune to his son's quirk thanks to his own quirk, only had an immunity-bestowing quirk, which had no direct use in straight-up combat, going for him. Shinso, having been trained extensively under Aizawa's tutelage, was able to put up enough of a fight to go toe-to-toe with his father.

Additionally, near the end of the fight, the father and son pair had made enough noise that Sakaki, who was coming over at that time to see Shinso to check up on him, heard what was going on, had heard her boyfriend cry out in angered fury as he clearly sounded like he was in a fight, quite possibly for his life. The fat cat girl shoulder-rammed the front door open and, after she saw that Shinso's father had clearly gotten out, ran up and tackled him.

Sakaki's momentum as she charged at Shinso's father, backed by her considerable weight, resulted in a devastating tackle that threw Shinso's father to the floor, leaving him momentarily stunned. To make sure that the man wouldn't get up while Shinso called for the police, Sakaki turned so that her back faced where the abusive man laid prone on the floor and simply fell on him in a way that had her rather large, plump rear end squish down on him; his arms were also pinned under his own body, so he couldn't use them to push Sakaki off. Shinso's father was unable to get up from where he was pinned on the floor, not with a little over four-hundred pounds of teenage girl sitting right on top of him.

This didn't change the fact that Shinso, due to how much of a beating he had taken, had to go to the hospital for treatment. The brainwasher was still there, and according to the doctors he would have to miss classes at U.A. today. Sakaki, who had gone to the hospital because this was her boyfriend that's being talked about here, stayed the night and was currently on her way to U.A. from the hospital as Aizawa spoke to his co-workers. He got this from Tsukauchi, who had met Sakaki at the hospital to get a statement from her, since she was involved technically.

"Luckily for her, Yamamaya isn't being charged since she has a provisional license and was acting to stop an act of domestic abuse slash physical assault," Aizawa said to Hizashi, Nemuri and Sekijiro, "I don't know about any of you, but I intend to get more from Yamamaya about what all had happened last night when she gets here."

"I agree, Aizawa." Sekijiro crossed his arms over his chest as he gave off a gruff huff. "What that boy of yours in your class went through is by no means anything that he should have gone through. Hell, no one should ever have to go through hell like that."

"He's lucky that his little girlfriend came by at the right time," Hizashi remarked, "Things might have gone more south for the little dude otherwise." The others all nodded in agreement with the cockatiel-haired pro hero, although Aizawa was by no means in any mood to think about all of the messy business of 'might have gone more south'. In fact, if the underground hero's going to be honest, all he wanted to do right now was fine Shinso, give him a hug, and tell him that he's sorry for what had happened, sorry that he had failed him in such a manner.

"_I guess that I owe Toshinori an apology_," Aizawa thought when he suddenly had enough clarity to think properly, realizing that he know knew, to an extent, where the former Symbol of Peace came from when it comes to Midoriya.

* * *

Aizawa, after he finished teaching his classes for the day, went to go see his protégé at the hospital. The underground hero allowed Sakaki to come along as one, he knew full well how much she cared about the brainwasher and that she would be a comforting presence to Shinso, and two, Aizawa had no choice but to bring his foster daughter Eri along as well since he couldn't find a sitter to watch her in the meanwhile, and Sakaki could fill the role when Aizawa needed to talk to Shinso alone.

Aizawa got it that the relationship (for lack of a better word) between Shinso and his father had been going on for pretty much as long as the brainwasher could remember. Apparently, Shinso's late mother had died during childbirth, and as what sadly happens on occasions where a mom dies giving birth to her child, the child that is birthed is blamed for their mother's passing. That was the main driving point of all of the physical abuse Shinso had received from his father over the years; it didn't help at all that Shinso's father was also an alcoholic that drank heavily. All that the drinking did was fuel Shinso's father's irrational fury and abuse towards his son.

…Well, _former_ son, that is. As it turned out, Shinso's father's act of beating the boy enough to send him to the hospital was not only the worse incident of his abuse to Shinso yet, but it was also the final straw. As Shinso's abusive father was currently sitting in a jail cell awaiting transport to a prison for quirkless criminals and those with quirks not dangerous enough to call for imprisonment in a prison designed for quirked persons (such as Tartarus), legal work was being done to strip him of his parental rights; indeed, by the time Aizawa first stepped foot into the room at the hospital where his protégé was recovering, Shinso's father was, as far as the eyes of the law were concerned, no longer Shinso's father.

Aizawa, when he learned of this, was beyond relieved to hear that the law finally got its act together for Shinso's sake. But at the same time, the underground hero realized that the boy no had nowhere to call home, as even the dorms at U.A. were but a home away from home for the students of Japan's top hero high school; the brainwasher couldn't live there forever, not that he was going to, nor was this even the point that's being discussed right now.

Aizawa knew that, for the proper development of Shinso, he was going to need as stable of a home to return to until he could do things on his own. This was a topic that the underground hero went over with Hizashi, Sekijiro and Nemuri after he returned from seeing Shinso at the hospital just a few moments ago. During the meeting, Nemuri passingly made a joke about how Aizawa could just adopt Shinso himself, saying that the two of them were so similar that they might as well be father and son.

It was right as he was preparing to grill the eighteen only hero for sounding like Todoroki that Aizawa was struck with the best idea that he could come up with.

* * *

The next day at U.A., the students of class 1-A and class 1-B were all gathered in the same large classroom where the joint math exam was held a short while ago; they were told by Aizawa, Sekijiro and a few other teachers that there was a big announcement regarding how things would be proceeding at U.A. in light of recent events involving the actions of that criminal mercenary group, as well as the recent murder of an innocent civilian related to one of the hero course kids. As such, since the changes were going to affect all fifty of them, they all had to be brought to the same place so all of them could be informed all at once.

Izuku, as he talked with his friends Uraraka, Tenya and Todoroki, looked around a bit in the big classroom, noticed that something was a bit off when he counted only twenty-four 1-A students. "Hey, why is Shinso absent?"

"He was absent yesterday as well, as according to Yamamaya when I asked her Shinso was at the hospital recovering from being assaulted by his father," Tenya remarked, drawing shocked looks out of Izuku, Uraraka and _especially_ Todoroki.

The dual natured-quirk boy went as wide-eyed as he could, and looked to be about to say something in a calm tone that barely held back a raging storm. However, before he could get one word out, Todoroki was cut off when Aizawa entered the large classroom, accompanied by the missing Shinso. Aizawa instructed Shinso to wait with the other students while he himself went to the front of the large classroom to wait for the other teachers to arrive.

Spotting the green-eyed boy, Shinso walked over to him. "I…assume that you guys had heard from Sakaki by now about what happened to me?"

"Shinso." Todoroki spoke in a calm tone that held back vast swaths of fury, a tone that the brainwasher was able to pick up on and thus turned to give Todoroki his full attention. "Where can I find the bastard who abused you so that I can grab him by his balls, flash-freeze said balls as if they were dipped into liquid nitrogen, then shatter them into oblivion in my grasp?"

"In jail," Shinso replied with something of a smirk. It was a smirk that came from a mix of amusement over his ex-father's ultimate fate and what Todoroki said he intended to do if he were to ever come across the abusive man himself. Gesturing to everyone he was talking to, Shinso went on, "Yeah, he's currently sitting in jail, awaiting transport to prison where he will be held while awaiting trial for all of his bullshit over the years."

Izuku and the others looked relieved to hear that the law was being served here. Jerking a thumb over where Aizawa stood in the front of the classroom, the brainwasher went on, "Also, part of why I arrived at the same time as Aizawa-sensei was that after my ex-father was legally stripped of his parental rights to me, I was taken in by Aizawa-sensei. He's my foster father now."

Izuku and his friends looked a bit surprised to hear that their homeroom teacher had taken Shinso in, after all that the purple-haired boy had been through. Izuku, seeing the look on Todoroki's face as the bi-colored boy raised an index finger while looking like he was fit to say something, immediately had his drop whatever it was that he was going to say.

END, CHAPTER THIRTY

Author's notes;

Well, that takes care of that. In all actuality, real life cases of domestic abuse really gets me heated. I cannot begin to describe how it angers me when I hear of a parent having physically abused a kid, a lover abusing their other, and other such cases where one person strikes another repeatedly even though logically such actions should never have taken place at all. It goes without saying that such cases ought to be reported when and where they occur. Many people out there seem to overlook just how much power a simple call has, how much good it's capable of doing.

…But I'm just rambling on there. This chapter is meant to show what the teachers of U.A. are willing to do for the sake of a student in trouble, and I tried to end it on as bright of a note as I could manage. Anyway, the next chapter will see decisions made in the previous chapter start to take effect. In fact, the beginning of next chapter picks up a few moments after the end of this chapter, as Aizawa's still waiting for some of the other teachers to show up before they could go over new changes that are being made.


	31. Chapter 31

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter thirty-one: New staff on campus

The combined fifty students of class 1-A and class 1-B were all waiting around in the large classroom where they (well, most of them) took a recent big joint math exam. Izuku, along with his friends Uraraka, Tenya, Todoroki and Shinso (who had just joined the other four) were all wondering just what it was that the senseis wanted to go over with everyone here. As of the moment, only Aizawa was present, waiting by the front of the classroom behind the one desk but in front of the board, so things were going to have to wait until Hizashi, Sekijiro and Nemuri all showed up.

"I still can't help but worry about what our teachers have to tell us," Tenya remarked in a worried tone as he looked down at the floor while holding his right index finger and thumb to his chin in a gesture that showed contemplation. Looking up at his friends, the class 1-A rep was not able to hide his worries. "U.A. has already had to make some changes due to recent events, so I certainly hope that this isn't a meeting to discuss _more_ changes."

"We ought to trust Aizawa-sensei and the other teachers to know what they are doing," Shinso remarked calmly, getting the others to turn to face him. The brainwasher of 1-A nodded once in an assured manner as he crossed his arms over his chest. "They wouldn't be here as teachers at U.A. if they weren't good at what they do."

Izuku and the others looked on at Shinso as they generally agreed with him. Todoroki, nodding once, remarked as he gestured to Shinso, "Well of course you'd vouch for your father over in the front of the classroom."

Shinso, knowing that the dual-natured quirk boy was getting at, only gave a mildly amused smirk. "…He's only been at the job for less than one day so far, and yet Aizawa-sensei is already doing far better than the sorry sack of shit that was my last male parental figure." Izuku nodded once after Shinso responded to Todoroki's remark; just a few moments ago, right after he had entered the classroom with the underground hero, Shinso explained to Izuku and the others that, due to recent things that weren't exactly easy to talk about, Aizawa had taken him in as his foster son. Given Aizawa's current ongoing success with Eri, he was approved to take in Shinso.

Izuku, although he was upset to hear of the abuse his friend had gone through, was glad to hear that not only was said abuse now over for good, but that the brainwasher was now in the capable hands of Aizawa, who by the way had already worked extensively with Shinso even before he took him in as his foster son. The green-haired cinnamon roll would have gone on, but before he could get the first word out, the door leading into the classroom opened.

Everyone turned to see Hizashi, followed by Sekijiro and Nemuri, walk into the classroom. They went right up to where Aizawa was waiting for them at the front of the classroom. The four U.A. teachers had a bit of a group huddle as they talked amongst themselves to decide who would be the one to lead the meeting. Evidently, the job was given to Nemuri, given that the eighteen only hero moved to stand in front of the desk at the front of the classroom.

"Okay children, let's take our seats," Nemuri began as she gestured for the combined fifty students to all sit. She waited to continue until everyone in 1-A and 1-B were seated. "Now, as I am sure a lot of you are aware, there's a greater need for heroes now more than ever, what with all that has happened as of late."

Hagakure's invisible hand went up, and Nemuri called on her. "Did something bad happen again, and that said thing will affect all of us here?"

"Luckily, that's not really the case," the eighteen only hero replied as she pointed to the invisible girl. Gesturing to around the gathered students, Nemuri explained, "Part of what that increased need entailed was boosting the number of students in both of the first year hero course classes, but something that we on the staff here failed to take into account from the get-go was that, when we had to increase the number of students, we also should have gotten a few more staff members to help handle everything."

This prompted a number of hands to go up, so Nemuri called on the first one that caught her eye, that being Omono Tanaka of class 1-B. "I'm assuming that this means we're getting some new teachers here at school?"

"Right you are, Tanaka," Aizawa spoke up from where he leaned with his back to the board behind the desk in the front of the classroom. Getting up, the underground hero walked a bit to stand next to Nemuri. "This decision was made a few days ago, but wasn't going to take effect until today as there were some issues involving the proper paperwork that had to be taken care of first. But yes, starting today there will be four new members of U.A.'s staff. I'm sure that I speak for Nemuri and the others here when I say that we all expect the lot of you to respect the new staff members as much as you respect those here already."

A few more hands went up this time, and Aizawa, after looking over the sea of hands, picked on one. It was Goukazaru Tsukasa, another one of the new boys in class 1-B, that the underground hero called on. "I assume that part of this gathering is to go over who exactly the new additions to the staff here are going to be?"

"Right you are, Tsukasa," Sekijiro said as he walked up to join Aizawa and Nemuri, "And we were actually getting to the point where we were going to introduce them."

"Come on in, ladies!" Hizashi shouted at the top of his lungs in an excited manner, startling many of the students and even making Eunice immediately throw her noise-cancelling headphones on before she scrunched up into a fetal position out of panic. As Tsuyu turned to try and calm the autistic girl down, assuring her that Hizashi-sensei didn't mean to startle her and just got a bit too excited, the door leading into the classroom opened, drawing the attention of most all of the gathered students.

Many of the students were surprised to see four well-known female pro heroes walk into the large classroom, heading right for the front to join up with the pro heroes that were already on the staff for U.A. The 1-A and 1-B kids were all surprised to see that Mirko, Mt. Lady, Ryukyu and Pixie-Bob, all currently wearing casual/civilian outfits, were apparently joining the school as staff members. Nemuri, who was behind the four female pro heroes, walked around to stand next to them, gesturing to them while facing all fifty of the first years.

"I'm sure many of you all already recognize Rumi Usagiyama, Yu Takeyama, Ryuko Tatsuma and Ryuko Tsuchikawa," the eighteen only hero began, "Or as they are respectively also known as Mirko, Mt. Lady, Ryukyu and Pixie-Bob. As of today, these four will be joining the staff here in temporary auxiliary roles until more permanent solutions can be found."

"You know, I personally wouldn't mind it if I ended up becoming one of the 'more permanent solutions'," Yu remarked when she turned to regard Nemuri. The collateral damage hero gave Midnight a somewhat amused smirk. "I've been wanting to do more than just be something pretty for others to look at. I want to have a bigger, more positive impact on the hero community as a whole, and working to prep the future generation of heroes sounds like a good way to do it."

"Yeah, I can't wait to take a crack at whipping the kids here into shape," Pixie-Bob remarked as she pounded her right fist into the palm of her left hand. Some of the students, such as Izuku who remembered when Pixie-bob grabbed his face and scolded him by saying she was still eighteen at heart, and some of the newer students in 1-A and 1-B like Habuko and Omono, paled a bit at Pixie-Bob's eagerness to get cracking on work, picking up a bit on some sadistic pleasure that would only come from running them all through the wringer.

Aizawa walked around to stand in front of the four new staff members, getting their attention as a whole. "Yes, yes, I'm sure you all want to get to work." Pointing to Pixie-Bob, Aizawa added, "You most of all." Aizawa lowered his hand he was pointing with before he went on. "But there are still a few things that we still need to go over before we can turn my brats and Sekijiro's brats over to you ladies. First off, Ryuko."

"Yes?" both Pixie-Bob and Ryukyu said in unison, then when they realized they both spoke at the same time they turned to look at each other.

The underground hero let out a troubled sigh as he realized what was going on. "That's right, the both of you have the same first name as each other." To the two similarly named ladies, Aizawa said, "Okay, new rule. If anyone wants to talk to one of you and you're both in the same room as each other, the person who wants to get your attention has to use your hero name instead of your first name. Sound good?" Both Ryukos, as well as Yu, Rumi and all of the current U.A. staff that was in the room, all nodded in agreement.

Satisfied with that, Aizawa turned to focus on Ryukyu. "Okay, Ryukyu, this one here is for you."

"What's up, Aizawa?" the Dragoon Hero asked, a look of curiosity on her face.

"Nezu was made aware of how you're properly trained and licensed to teach and help look after special needs students, particularly those that have autism," Aizawa began, "That being said, he's asked that you go see Hound Dog to help him get up to speed on the matter himself, as he's been put in charge of U.A.'s recently established special needs department."

"I can see him as soon as this meeting is finished," Ryukyu replied.

Aizawa nodded once in acknowledgement, as well as a bit of thanks. Although Hound Dog is also currently studying to get the same training and licensing that the Dragoon Hero has, he still has a bit to go. With someone like Ryukyu helping to get Hound Dog caught up and to get the ball rolling for the school's special needs department, the underground hero felt much better about how U.A. can better help its special needs students. …Well, just one student right now.

Pointing to the other Ryuko, Aizawa said, "Pixie-Bob, I do intend to have you work with my students at the very least in the immediate future, but Sekijiro may also want to grab you as well to give his students a workout." A nod from the class 1-B homeroom teacher confirmed that he intended to have his brats work with the Wild, Wild Pussycats member.

Speaking of said member, she gave a somewhat toothy, eager grin. "Yeah, I can't wait to take a crack at seeing what these kids can do, especially the ones that I don't recognize from the Forest Training Camp trip you guys all took to my team's turf." Suddenly, Pixie-Bob's eyes fell on where Sakaki sat in the classroom. "Ooh, who's that new girl sitting next to the tired-looking boy with the purple hair? She looks like a fun one to work with."

"Oh, that's Sakaki Yamamaya," Aizawa replied, "And given the nature of Yamamaya's quirk, I can see why you, Pixie-bob, would be interested in working with her specifically." A few more formalities were taken care of before Aizawa, Sekijiro, Hizashi and Nemuri all addressed the combined fifty students of 1-A and 1-B.

"Listen, kids," Hizashi began, "I know that this change to the school staff here may come as a shock to all of you, especially considering how many things have happened as of late. But I speak for the rest of the staff here when I say that we assure you it's only to make sure there are a sufficient number of teachers here to look after and train all of you. It's just a side-effect of how we had to increase the class sizes for your respective classes as of late."

A lot of the students, who had previously looked concerned with the changes that were being made, looked to have calmed down a lot, as if their worries about why there were more pro heroes working at U.A. now had been put to rest. In fact, Tenya raised a hand, wating until he was called on by Hizashi before he spoke. "This is a reasonable act to address the increase of students in our classes, and I for one am a bit surprised that none of us realized it until now."

"We can go over the finer points later as they become relevant, Iida," Aizawa remarked, gesturing for the class 1-A rep to sit down. After Tenya obeyed the silent command from his teacher, said teacher turned to look at all of the gathered students as a whole. "All of you will work with our new staff here at least once each, so you all better get ready for what they can and will do, especially considering the fact that two of them are in the current top ten."

The combined fifty students in Aizawa's and Sekijiro's respective classes all responded in the affirmative in unison, with some even looking forward to what the new staff members had in store for them. Mineta was particularly happy, as all of the new staff members were women, and women with…notable features…no less. Once all of the new staff members had introduced themselves, they were given the cue by Aizawa and the others already working at U.A. to get right to work, although Aizawa and Sekijiro took Pixie-Bob to the side first and quietly discussed something with the Wild, Wild Pussycats member.

Izuku, as well as Tenya and Yaoyorozu, all noticed this, and could not help but wonder what their teachers were discussing.

* * *

"I have to say, I'm rather impressed," Nezu remarked as he held a smaller meeting with only a few of U.A.'s base staff; counting Nezu himself, there was only Aizawa, Sekijiro, Hound Dog, Hizashi and Toshinori present. The quirked animal principal skimmed through a brief report file that he had at his place at the meeting table before setting it back down. "Our 'recent hires' have taken to the U.A. atmosphere quite well, and we haven't even gotten them to work on their true reason for being here yet."

The other staff members at the meeting all agreed with their boss's remark, with Sekijiro even raising a hand to speak. "I'm particularly rather fond of how well of a job Mirko's done at helping to whip the brats into shape, or otherwise keep them in line. She's certainly proven to be rather useful in making sure the kids learn discipline."

"And Ryukyu has proven invaluable in helping me get things for U.A.'s special needs department up and running," Hound Dog commented, "Not to mention she's agreed to help me study so I can get the necessary training and licensing that part of my new job here requires."

The others nodded, and Toshinori let out a mildly resigned sigh. This caught the attention of the other men at the meeting, and Aizawa was a bit surprised when the former symbol of peace turned to face him specifically. "…Have we gotten things ready so that the children can begin their training under Pixie-Bob?"

Aizawa's eyes widened a bit, to show a hint of surprise, before they returned to the dry, tired look that they always had. "…Sekijiro and I already covered that," the underground hero replied, "First thing tomorrow morning, our combined fifty students will be going into Ground Omega where they will begin their sparring with Pixie-Bob so as to get ideas on how to best fight against people with earth manipulation quirks." Sekijiro, wearing a grim look of resignation on his face, nodded solemnly twice as he crossed his arms over his chest.

The other men at the meeting table all had grim looks on their faces as silence hung thick in the air, silence derived from worries about something that may end up coming to pass. Even Nezu, who normally looked happy, could not help but feel a bit of dread. However, Nezu quickly got himself back into his usual demeanor in short order by briskly shaking his head. He cleared his throat before he began addressing the rest of the staff at the meeting.

"There's no need to be so gloomy, men. After all, the chance that _she_ may be part of the group slated to visit us in a few weeks is very low, so it's rather likely that all of this worrying may all be for nothing." The others at the meeting seemed to take their boss's word for it, and their worries eased somewhat. Even so, none of them, even Nezu himself, were able to completely get their worries out of their mind.

…Which was all the more reason why the U.A. staff, Aizawa and Sekijiro especially, were looking forward to tomorrow, where their respective classes will begin their special training under Pixie-Bob.

* * *

The following morning, the students of class 1-A and class 1-B were all in their gym uniforms over in Ground Omega as they began their scheduled training under Pixie-Bob. The students were all surprised when told by Aizawa and Sekijiro that as part of the training under Pixie-Bob, she was allowed to use her quirk, Earth Flow, in whatever way strikes her fancy so long as she stopped short of causing any really serious harm.

This meant that not only was she allowed to create avalanches of dirt that exploded all around the vast group of students that she was facing off against, but she was also encouraged by the two homeroom teachers to create as many of her Earth Beasts as she can manage. To make things even more difficult for the combined fifty students, they were told that although they were allowed to attack the conjured Earth Beasts, they were _not_ allowed to attack Pixie-Bob herself, or otherwise use their quirks on her in any fashion.

"For your sparring with Pixie-Bob," Sekijiro explained, his left hand on his hip as he held up his right index finger, "You all are to work on being able to anticipate what someone with an earth manipulation quirk like Pixie-Bob can do in a fight and work to evade any attacks that are thrown your way. Additionally, none of you are allowed to use your quirks in any way to attack Pixie-Bob or otherwise impede her from being able to act."

"Pretend she's an opponent that nothing you can do would work against," Aizawa remarked, "Which is why using your quirks on her in any fashion is barred."

With that final bit of instruction from their homeroom teachers, the students of 1-A and 1-B began their sparring with Pixie-Bob. After all fifty of the combined students got into a good area of Ground Omega, they were surprised attacked by Pixie-Bob, who made the ground beneath their feet shift and move as mounds of it quickly rose and fell, like a wavy bouncy castle or some other similar attraction.

Those capable of getting up off of the ground in some fashion did so; Izuku was a bit amazed to see Omono's arms stretch to a truly ridiculous length as he grabbed a thick branch high up in a tree a good few dozen feet away, then pulling himself to where he was grabbing. Kurama and Goukazaru both leapt out of the danger zone, showing considerable physical prowess in the process, and Artemis seemingly surged with energy as he jumped straight up into the air and just floated there, as if he were flying.

"This is insane!" Omono cried out from the tree he was in, "Pixie-sensei is allowed to do most whatever she wants, and the most we're allowed to do is fight her conjured constructs and run around to evade her actual attacks?! How the hell is this fair?!"

"You're telling me!" Tsuyu called out to the rubber boy of 1-B while carrying an injured Habuko over her back. Using her long, frog-like tongue, Tsuyu grabbed onto the branch of a nearby tree and used that to pull both herself and her friend from their middle school days out of the danger zone that was Pixie-Bob's area of attack. Once up in that tree, Tsuyu managed to sit Habuko up on a branch and had her stay there, mostly for her safety as she was too hurt to continue.

…

At the end of that training session, most all of the combined fifty students were all roughed up to the point that they had to go see Recovery Girl, and would miss the rest of their classes for the day. Only Izuku, Bakugo, Todoroki, Kirishima, Tenya, Kaminari and Tokoyami from class 1-A, and Artemis, Tetsutetsu and Akuma of class 1-B, were in good enough shape to not require having to miss the rest of their classes for the day. "What the fuck was all of that?" Artemis said, a look of mildly rattled surprise on his face.

Akuma, his arms crossed over his chest, nodded in agreement with his exoskeletoned classmate, a grim look of suspicion on his face. "To make matters worse, our senseis told us that all fifty of us will have to do another round of that training with Pixie-sensei when everyone who was hurt recovers enough to try again." The Satanist of U.A. snarled a bit, looking very much unamused by the experiences he and his schoolmates had. "What the hell is the point of that training?"

Tetsutetsu, nodding in agreement with the new boys in his class, said, "Yeah, I have a sinking feeling that the teachers told us to not fight back and focus solely on evasion because they just wanted to see us struggle pointlessly." The steel boy of 1-B turned to face his counterpart and friend in class 1-A. "Kirishima, dude, tell me that you agree with me on that one."

Kirishima, to the surprise of Tetsutetsu (as well as Artemis and Akuma to a lesser extent), had a look of mildly resigned worry on his face, looking like he was staring off into the distance if he could. The three boys from class 1-B also saw that the other 1-A boys all had the same kind of looks on their respective faces as well. This caused Tetsutetsu, Artemis and Akuma to all look at the seven 1-A boys with curious, mildly suspicious looks.

"…You guys all know something." Akuma's remark to the 1-A boys was more of a statement than a question.

"We…" Izuku began in a troubled, resigned tone, "…Ran into a similar situation before." Looking at the three boys from 1-B, Izuku said, "A while ago, when my class took a field trip to the United States, the guys here and I-" Izuku paused to gesture to all of his classmates that were in the locker room with him and the three 1-B boys, "-Were dragged into a rather nasty fight over in the town that we went to."

The other 1-A boys, all of them with resigned, troubled looks on their faces, all nodded in agreement with the green-haired cinnamon roll. In fact, it was Bakugo who took the initiative to carry on with the explanation. "Our perverted classmate Grape Head, because he couldn't keep it in his pants, led some samurai-looking guy with this crazy powerful fire quirk into attacking us, using us as scapegoats so his sorry ass could get way scot free. As a result, said samurai bastard completely and utterly steamrolled the seven of us here, putting us all in the local hospital for the rest of the field trip."

An expression of remembering something spread across the Satanist's face. "Ah, I believe that you guys are speaking again of that gold fire quirk fellow that you mentioned to me."

"_Gold_ fire?" Tetsutetsu said, a look of piqued surprise on his face. The other boys all turned to face the steel boy of 1-B, giving him their attention. "Huh, that sort of reminds me of that gold lightning girl that my classmates and I ran away from during our field trip, before the two of you and the other new guys all joined us," Tetsutetsu remarked to Artemis and Akuma."

"When my classmates and I were caught up in that fight," Tenya explained, "Our opponent was completely enshrouded in a cloak of golden flames. Regardless of what we threw at him, not one effort we made had even the slightest effect." The class 1-A rep gave a resigned, troubled sigh. "I believe that the reason why we weren't allowed to fight back against Pixie-sensei, why we were only allowed to evade her attacks, is because there might be someone out there with a quirk similar to what the gold fire fellow has, but it involves gold earth instead. Pixie-sensei, with her ability to manipulate earthen material, must be prepping us for that."

_Gold earth_. Those words rang loudly in Izuku's mind, jogging the green-eyed boy's memory with a certain talk that he had with Toshinori a while ago, a talk where the former Symbol of Peace had trusted his devoted protégé to keep what he learned from him to himself in all but the direst of circumstances.

_Any and all methods that you can think of to try to combat them can _and will_ fail to do so. Aizawa's quirk can't erase them, your schoolmate Monoma's quirk can't copy them, that horrific Quirk-Destroying drug will have absolutely no effect on them… *** quirks even can't be stolen by All for One._ _And those are just a few examples._

_There's only one method that I can think of off the top of my head right now. Just plain don't start anything with *** quirk users._

There was something else about his classmate Tenya mentioning gold earth that triggered something in Izuku's mind, a memory of how his late father Hisashi, while doing undercover work for his true job as a spy to bring down criminal groups from within, was killed by unknowing police over in the States, with said police backed up by a local quirked girl that had the very quirk that Tenya mentioned, an earth manipulation quirk were the manipulated earth was enveloped in an aura of brilliant gold.

"Anyway, we aren't allowed to say much of anything on the subject of those golden quirks because otherwise the teachers here will get all pissy with us," Bakugo explained to the three boys from 1-B, "But our training with Pixie-Bob just now gives me the sinking feeling that we might ending having to at some point fight someone like that gold fire bastard for real."

The explosive teen's remark at the end rattled Izuku to his core, although he did well to hide it from the notice of the others. All Might himself said that the best chance of stopping someone with a quirk of _that_ level is to plain not start anything with them, but if what Bakugo said just now is true, then Izuku feared that he and his schoolmates may very well end up getting thrown into a _real fight_ against someone with a quirk of _that_ level. Remembering what happened the last time such a fight took place, Izuku silently prayed that he and all of his schoolmates weren't actually going to be made to take part in so hopeless a fight, that the teachers were all just being paranoid or whatever.

That had to be the case. …Right?

END, CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Author's notes;

This chapter helps to lay the ground work for a number of things in the story as a whole, such as the increase of pro heroes on U.A. grounds in case there's another incident where large numbers of hostiles try to storm the school grounds; given what happened ever since the siege of U.A. during the school festival where Azu-Daioh High visited, Nezu and the teachers all believe that having additional pros at the school would be a good thing.

Something else this chapter establishes is helping to set things up for the next arc, which is still a few chapters off at a minimum. You all will be surprised with what I have in mind for what all is going to be taking place; it's not going to be what you might be expecting, so don't go making any assumptions. But that's not here and now. Anyway, the next chapter will see a bit of slice of life for a lot of characters, in order to get them some characterization. It'll have a few moments of drama and hurt/comfort, but it will overall still be a heartwarming trip.


	32. Chapter 32

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter thirty-two: How everyone spent their day

Reiko Yanagi and Pony Tsunotori, both of them girls in U.A. High School's class 1-B, were both sitting at a table in the kitchen area of the class 1-B dorm building one well enough morning. They both felt sore all over after the training exercise their class did with class 1-A the previous day, where the combined fifty students had to go against Pixie-Bob of the Wild, Wild Pussycats in what many of them agreed was a hopeless fight that they teachers seemingly did not want them to have any chance of winning.

As the ghost girl and the half-American girl somewhat stiffly tried to eat what they had gotten for themselves for breakfast, their classmate Setsuna Tokage came walking down the stairs from one of the upper floors of the dorm building. The recommended female student seemed to have something of a spring in her step, despite having been roughed up just as much as Reiko and Pony during the aforementioned training.

Both Reiko and Pony took note of this, took note of how Setsuna seemed like she felt that there was nothing that could go wrong for her today. Curious, Reiko spoke up and got Setsuna's attention. "Well don't you seem chipper this morning, Setsuna."

Having heard someone call out to her, Setsuna turned her attention and spotted her classmates sitting at the one table. She could tell right away that both Reiko and Pony seemed to be in no good shape, so her smile faltered, although it was only by a little. "Heh, well I got a lot of free time today, so I was planning to go see this one movie that's currently in theaters that I've been dying to see."

"My back feels bad," Pony moaned in a pained, complaining tone, sounding sort of like an old woman despite being in her mid-teens. The half-American girl tried to pop something in her back by pressing her right hand against it while Reiko tried cracking her neck a bit to relieve some built-up pain in there. Setsuna's smile faltered a bit more as she saw that her classmates and fellow girls were both still in pain after their thrashing from Pixie-Bob the previous day.

Setsuna let out a resigned sigh as she crossed her arms over her chest. A look of sympathy appeared on the recommended female student's face. "…You two are still in bad shape after our training, if we can call it that, under Pixie-sensei yesterday, aren't you?" Setsuna asked, drawing affirmative, mildly grumpy, responses from both Reiko and Pony. Setsuna looked more guilty as she realized that her talking about how she was going to have a good day, how her acting like there was nothing wrong, may have actually caused the grumpiness in her classmates.

Setsuna rushed over when Reiko, who tried to get up out of her chair, stumbled a bit as she nearly lost balance and fell over onto the floor, due to how much pain she was in. The ghost girl of 1-B was barely able to save herself from the fall, although Setsuna still reached her in time in case she wasn't able to save herself. "Wow, you girls look like you've gotten it almost as bad as Kinoko due to how she was hit by that one earth wave attack."

"Now's *ow* not exactly the time to remind us about how badly Kinoko was hurt when she rushed in to take a hit that would have otherwise hit her crush Kirishima instead," Reiko said as she, realizing that she wasn't exactly in the condition to get up, sat back down in her chair.

Setsuna looked even guiltier that before, but suddenly she perked right up. "Oh, I know what you girls should do!" Both Reiko and Pony turned to look at Setsuna, who now wore something of an amused grin on her face. "Reiko, you mentioning how Kinoko has a crush on Tetsutetsu's bud over in 1-A reminded me that the respective boys in 1-A that have a crush on you and Pony are both in relatively good shape."

Reiko and Pony, their interest piqued by what Setsuna said, slowly nodded in agreement. "Bakugo did look like he knew what doing," Pony commented, still struggling with some of the finer points of the Japanese language but able to get her point across well enough, "He look like he faced similar fight before."

"The same goes for Todoroki, now that you mention it," Reiko said. Looking up at Setsuna, the ghost girl asked, "What's your point?"

"My point," Setsuna explained as she pointed to the sore girls in her class, "Is that you and Pony ought to get Todoroki and Bakugo to help you out today." Seeing the looks of surprise on the respective faces of the two girls, Setsuna merely shook her head. "Oh, come on. Those boys do like you two, and you two _have_, after all, started dating the respective boys that crush on you. I bet that Todoroki and Bakugo would both be glad to take care of the two of you while you are both hurt, treating you girls like princesses."

Reiko and Pony both lit up red like bright, shiny Christmas ornaments out of embarrassment. Seeing this drew a chuckle out of Setsuna. "I'll go track Todoroki and Bakugo down right now, tell them what's up and see if they're up for tending to you."

"Don't you dare!" Reiko snapped as Setsuna turned around.

The recommended female student was walking straight to the large doors that served as the front doors that led into the main part of the 1-B dorm building, never stopping in her stride on the way. "What's that? I can't here you over in front of the dorm building, which is where I'm about to go." The look of smirking amusement on Setsuna's face was clear as day before she turned her head back around.

"Setsuna!" Reiko cried out, more annoyed and embarrassed than anything else.

* * *

Later that morning in town, Izuku Midoriya could be seen getting out of a car in front of a name brand convenience store. Getting out of the driver's seat of said car was Mitsuki Bakugo, the mother of Izuku's classmate Katsuki Bakugo (who Izuku called Kacchan); Mitsuki also just so happened to be the green-eyed boy's girlfriend, as they hooked up shortly after Mitsuki had gotten divorced from her ex-husband Masaru. The relationship between the green-eyed boy and the ashy-haired woman was completely the latter's idea.

What was also Mitsuki's idea was stopping off at this specific convenience store. "It's very simple, sweetness," Mitsuki said as she and Izuku walked up to the front door of the store, "We just hide the snacks we buy here in my purse, I bring my purse in with me into the theater, and bada-bing bada-boom, we don't have to pay overcharged prices for theater snacks."

The green-haired cinnamon roll was still unsure about his older girlfriend's plan to sneak snacks into the theater. As a matter of fact, Izuku remembered once incident where Bakugo and his 'squad' all got in trouble for sneaking outside snacks into the theater, and later got it from Mina that it was Bakugo's idea because the explosive teen said, and Mina quoted him word for word on this one, 'it's like that greedy-ass cartoon crab is running the snacks booth at the theater'.

Still, Izuku did not want to get into an argument with Mitsuki, and it helped that the convenience store that they were going into carried a specific brand of gummy candy that he was rather fond of. As such, he decided to ignore the nagging feeling in the back of his head that this was wrong and just went with it. The nagging feeling, as well as all other thought processes, stopped when Izuku and Mitsuki nearly bumped into a pair of people that were leaving the convenience store at the same moment they were about to enter it.

To Izuku's further surprise, the two people that he and Mitsuki almost crashed into were Artemis Norio, one of the new boys in class 1-B over at U.A. and, to Izuku's even further confusion, Samidare Asui, the ten-year-old younger brother of his classmate Tsuyu. "Oh, you're that green-haired guy that my blonde idiot of a classmate claims is the cause of all woe wrought by you and your buddies in 1-A," the exoskeletoned boy remarked casually.

"Oh, hello Norio," Izuku greeted, "Me and Mitsuki were only here to get some snacks that she says she wants to sneak into the theater."

Nodding in understanding, Artemis remarked, "Indeed. I cannot blame either of you two for doing that." He gestured to Izuku and Mitsuki with a hand that held a small Ziploc bag that held a single but fairly large brownie; his other hand held a thirty-two ounce lidded cup that was transparent, so Izuku and Mitsuki could both see that it held some pastel tan-colored drink of some matter. Looking to Samidare, Izuku saw that he also had the same snack and same drink as the exoskeletoned boy.

Curious, Izuku gestured to Samidare while still facing Artemis. "What are you doing with Tsuyu's little brother?"

"Oh, you mean my main man Samidare here?" Artemis asked casually, "Yeah, I was taking some time to educate him about some of the finer aspects of society, like how this chain of convenience stores has the most amazing horchata as a fountain drink, and how it pairs well with one of the large brownies sold at the registers." Samidare said nothing, although he did nod once in agreement with Artemis.

Izuku was mildly surprised by how one of his schoolmates considered a ten-year-old boy as a best friend, but remembering that a lot of his classmates in 1-A, such as Bakugo and Mina, have a lot of respect for Tsuyu's little brother, he decided not to question it. Mitsuki, on the other hand, arched a wry eyebrow out of confusion as she gestured to Artemis and Samidare with her right hand.

"You're a high schooler, and yet you're best friends with an elementary schooler." Crossing her arms over her chest, Mitsuki asked, "Doesn't that strike you as odd?"

"What would strike me as odd is if I were anything other than classmates with that blonde hysteric holler monkey that's in 1-B with me," Artemis replied, a slight but clear hint of snark in the exoskeletoned boy's tone. Artemis then turned to look at Izuku, a look of knowingness on his face. "Midoriya, dude, back me on this one."

Gulping a bit, Izuku said, "Well, Monoma _could_ stand to ease up a bit on how far he takes the rivalry between our respective classes."

Artemis laughed a bit, clearly amused by how the green-haired cinnamon roll had just agreed with him. After he calmed down from his laughing, Artemis said, "Well it was nice chatting to you. A hell of a lot nicer than it would have been if I were chatting with Monoma instead. But Samidare and I have got to bounce." Samidare, having heard what his friend said, hopped up and down a bit, catching Artemis's attention. The headphones around the sole Asui brother's neck bounced a bit when he hopped.

"Ah ha, ha," Artemis chuckled a bit in knowing amusement, "No, little dude. When I say that 'we have to bounce', it was a way for me to say that we need to get going." Gesturing for the kid to follow him, Artemis took off with Samidare right behind him. After the two of them had left, Izuku and Mitsuki, after exchanging mildly curious looks, turned to face the store and go inside, so as to get the snacks that Mitsuki was going to smuggle into the theaters.

* * *

After they left Izuku and Mitsuki at the convenience store, Artemis and Samidare walked along on the sidewalk around a nearby local park. They had since finished their respective brownies, and were now finishing up their drinks. "Mmm," Samidare hummed contently, his tone showing that he liked how his horchata tasted, as he and his best friend walked along.

"You see, man?" the exoskeletoned boy said, having heard the kid's hum of delight, "A lot of folks out there assume that the finer things in life require you to pay big time to have, but in truth some of the finer things cost around two-hundred yen." Artemis nodded once in an assured way, showing that he felt his words were very much valid. "You don't have to be rich like that one girl in your older sister's homeroom class over at-"

"Ah, fancy running into you here at the park, Artemis!" a male voice called out, getting the attention of both Artemis and Samidare. Artemis recognized the voice right away, but he really did not want to have to deal with the owner of said voice.

Sadly enough for Artemis, his classmate Neito Monoma came walking up to him. To the piqued interest of Artemis, Monoma was accompanied by their classmates in 1-B Omono, Akuma, Kurama and Goukazaru, the other new boys in 1-B aside from Artemis himself. With the noted exception of Akuma, all of the boys in the group that came up to the exoskeletoned boy sported a few bandaged injuries, a testament to the joint training that 1-B did with 1-A yesterday.

Monoma gestured to Artemis, getting his focus on him. "There's something that I, as an older member of our class, need to go over with you and the boys here." Monoma arched a wry eyebrow when he suddenly noticed Samidare standing next to Artemis. Nonchalantly, the blonde boy of 1-B pointed to the sole Asui brother while still looking at Artemis. "…Who's the kid?"

"This here is my bud Samidare," Artemis explained, "He and I have been chill since before I was fast-enrolled into U.A."

"You're…friends with a kid?" Goukazaru asked, looking more confused than anything else.

Giving his primate-like classmate a curious look, Artemis replied, "What? You'd rather I be friends with a clown instead?"

Monoma's eyes widened a bit as he heard the exoskeletoned boy's remark. "I wasn't aware that you were friends with any of those cretins in class 1-A, Artemis."

"I wasn't talking about any of them." The dry look of unamusement on Artemis's face, combined with a similar tone of voice, made it clear to all but the painfully oblivious Monoma that Artemis wasn't thinking about any of the students in class 1-B's rival class. The other new boys of the class all recognized the joke, and proceeded to suppress some chuckling.

Monoma, not understanding why his classmates were all chuckling, merely shrugged in an indifferent manner. "We're getting off subject here." Gesturing to Artemis, Monoma continued, "Look, my good man. You and most other may not see it, but those idiots in class 1-A would have long since burned the school down had it not been for the valiant efforts of us in class 1-B to keep things from falling into total anarchy. As such, it is necessary for me to educate you, as well as the other new students in our class, about the danger those idiots could cause if they are left to do as they please."

Artemis sighed in an exasperated tone, gently face palming while Samidare just continued to look up at Monoma while drinking his horchata from the convenience store. "Look, Monoma, I have no idea what it was that crawled up your ass and died, but you're taking your hate-boner for class 1-A way too far here."

Monoma, caught off guard by how Artemis was talking to him, sputtered a bit as he tried to find the right words to say. "I do not have a 'hate-boner', as you put it!"

"With all due respect Monoma, Artemis has a point on how it's a pretty hateful boner," Akuma remarked, prompting Monoma to turn to face him. Some of the other new boys in 1-B snickered as their Satanist classmate agreed with Artemis against Monoma. Putting his hands on his hips, Akuma went on, "But in all seriousness, the people in 1-A aren't all that bad. Hell, I've been friends with Sakaki since we were back at Vulcan, before either of us got into U.A. And that purple-haired guy that Sakaki's got the hots for is a pretty chill dude, not to mention how there are a number of guys in 1-A that I wouldn't mind having the chance to go against in a brawl."

The blonde boy of class 1-B, with a hint of a knowing smirk on his face, turned to properly face Akuma. "…I can only assume that explosive Neanderthal that managed to brainwash Pony into thinking that he's not bad is one of said persons in that hellhole class that you-"

Monoma was cut off midsentence when something hit him in the back of the head; from the feel of it, it was a plastic bottle that was about half full or so. Turning around to see who it was that had assaulted him just now, Monoma saw his and the boys' classmates Pony and Reiko, who were accompanied by Todoroki and (a very pissed-looking) Bakugo. The explosive teen had his right arm raised in a manner that suggested he had just thrown something.

"You want to repeat that, you blonde turd?!" Bakugo bellowed angrily at Monoma, making him go wide-eyed a bit with alarm.

"Yeah, word choice not most wise in the world," Pony scolded as she and Reiko both looked at their hysteric classmate with disapproving looks. The half-American girl pointed an accusing finger at Monoma as she said, "Bakugo not have me brainwashed, that's not his quirk. Say sorry to him right now."

Begrudgingly, Monoma scoffed out an apology to Bakugo, who accepted it only because he was in front of Pony, who was now his girlfriend after so much effort on his (Bakugo's) part to win over her heart. Regardless of the development, Monoma still needed to go over a few things with the new students in 1-B, so Artemis reluctantly took Samidare home after he agreed to meet Monoma and the boys at a nearby pizza parlor. After the two groups left, Bakugo, Todoroki and their respective girlfriends proceeded on their way.

* * *

After they ran into Pony and Reiko's classmates in front of the park, the two girls and the boys with them stopped off at a burger place to grab a light lunch together. Bakugo would normally be in no mood to share a meal with 'stupid IcyHot', but decided to put up with it for Pony's sake when she and Reiko both thought that a double-date would be a cute idea. Thus the four of them were seen sitting at the same table in the burger place, enjoying lunch.

"I'm very sorry how Monoma acted," Pony said in an apologetic tone to Bakugo and Todoroki, "I still no idea why he be like that."

Bakugo held up a hand to get Pony to stop, catching her attention. "…It's no big deal, Pony." The explosive teen leaned back in his seat as he said, "If the idiot gets too bad, just do to him what most of us tend to do to Grape Head on the regular basis."

Pony looked at Bakugo with an honestly confused look, while both Todoroki and Reiko looked at him with looks of mild suspicion. "…You know, Pony has yet to kick Mineta in his balls," Reiko began in a curious tone, "But don't you think that a kick from her would hurt him _more_ given that she has hooves rather than actual feet?"

Bakugo, as well as a mildly surprised Todoroki, both stopped short when the ghost girl pointed this little bit out. Slowly, the two boys turned to look at each other, exchanging silent wonder between the two of them. After a few moments, Todoroki said, "That's actually a really good question."

"I say we test the theory out when we get back to U.A.," Bakugo declared, a smirk of mild amusement on his face. Todoroki looked a bit firm with Bakugo, but Reiko looked amused while Pony just looked confused. The half-American girl had no idea what her boyfriend was talking about, but judging by Reiko's reaction, Pony was going to assume that Bakugo had just come up with a really good idea.

Pony would have asked for more clarification, but she was cut off when she, as well as the others at the table with her, heard some girls call out to them. Out of curiosity, the two 1-B girls and two 1-A boys turned to see Uraraka, Mina, Yaoyorozu and Tsuyu come walking over to them. It had been Mina that had called out to the group, and the pink-skinned girl had a clearly amused look on her face when she saw the double date.

"Ooh, is this what I think it is?" An amused smirk came up on Mina's face as she looked fit to rub her hands together in a manner to show that she was liking what she was seeing. "You know, I knew that you two boys would eventually succeed in getting your respective crushes to like you back, but never in my wildest dreams did I consider the possibility that you two would agree to doing a double date!"

"I can see why you'd think that, Mina," Yaoyorozu remarked as she turned to face her classmate, wincing slightly due to still being in a bit of pain from the previous day's sparring under Pixie-Bob, "I mean, Bakugo is one of the boys in question, so your surprise goes without saying."

The explosive teen merely scowled in an annoyed manner as the girls from his and Todoroki's class talked about the double date, which things clearly were. Thankfully for Bakugo, as well as Todoroki to an extent, the girls from 1-B decided to speak up. "You know, Bakugo has smoothed out a lot of his rough edges over time," Reiko remarked, "Sure, he seemed liable to literally rip someone's head off during the beginning of his time at U.A., but he's mellowed out a bit." The ghost girl shot Bakugo a wry, knowing look before turning back to face the 1-A girls. "I'm pretty sure that, if Bakugo was still the same when we all first started at U.A., he wouldn't've succeed in getting Pony to like him back."

Bakugo's eyes widened only a little bit, and no one else noticed it, but it was a sign that he seemed to be afraid of a possibility where Pony wouldn't like him. Thankful that it was now not the case, the explosive teen privately, and silently, resolved to himself to make sure that he did not act in a way that would make the half-American girl change her mind about being in a relationship with him.

He hoped to change the subject, and luckily for him such the opportunity occurred when he saw Yaoyorozu gently press her hand against the side of her neck as if to try and relieve some pressure, saw Tsuyu try to pop her back a bit. Bakugo saw these signs for what they were, signs that the girls in his and Todoroki's class were still reeling a bit from yesterday, when they, the rest of their class and everyone in 1-B had been forced by their respective homeroom teachers to let Pixie-Bob manhandle them. Said signs were also present in Reiko and, to the discomfort of Bakugo, Pony as well.

The explosive teen gestured to the four girls from 1-A, got their attention. "Not that it's any business of mine, but are the four of you okay?"

The four girls all looked a bit surprised that Bakugo, of all people, was inquiring about their wellbeing. It was Mina, who out of the present 1-A girls was on the best terms with Bakugo, who responded first. "We're still hurting from when Pixie-sensei decided to make us experience what living in an earthquake zone is like," the pink-skinned girl remarked, a hint of tired pain coming out from her voice.

"I would still like to know what Aizawa-sensei and Sekijiro-sensei were thinking," Yaoyorozu remarked, sounding a bit suspicious, "Having us only evade and not fight back at all. I'm having trouble trying to think of why we had to do such training."

"Not to mention how we're going to be doing it again as soon as our teachers think we've all recovered enough kero." The other girls, not to mention Bakugo, Todoroki and their respective dates, all paled a bit when Tsuyu pointed out that their first go with the 'special training' under Pixie-Bob was just that; their _first_ go. They were going to be doing it again, much to the dread of not just those present, but others in the 1-A and 1-B classes alike.

Mina held up her hands in a gesture signaling for everyone to hold their horses, lest a bunch of panicked murmuring broke out. "Look, how about instead of panicking now about what's to come in the future, we'll just deal with it when it comes. Sound good?"

The others seemed to agree that worrying about things when they come, instead of getting worked up over said things, was the best course of action in this case. All of the U.A. students there resolved to roll with the punches when and where they crop up. Since the double date that Bakugo, Todoroki and their respective girlfriends was still ongoing, the 1-A girls respectfully got out of their hair, allowing them to continue on in peace.

* * *

Uraraka, Tsuyu and Yaoyorozu followed along behind Mina as she led them to this cute little café that served amazing treats, not to mention fine coffee, tea and other such drinks. As a matter of fact, it was the very same café that Mina had previously recommended to Izuku to take Mitsuki out to go to, resulting in a successful date between the green-haired cinnamon roll and the ashy-haired woman.

Mina, as she and the other girls were enjoying their little stop at the café, went on about how not only did her advice succeeded in creating a good time for Izuku and Mitsuki, but it also did well to help other persons who she gave advice to on wooing someone that they had fallen for. At one point as Mina bragged about how she helped Izuku and Mitsuki get closer, it was Tsuyu that had noticed it when Uraraka somewhat forcefully put her mug of coffee down, hard enough to make a noticeable thud sound.

The frog-like girl turned to regard her brunette-haired friend, a hint of sympathy in her otherwise unreadable expression. "I can only assume that you are still jealous that Bakugo's mom managed to get into a relationship with Midoriya before you could?" Yaoyorozu and Mina, the latter of which had stopped talking upon hearing Tsuyu talk just now, both turned to regard Uraraka, who wore a look of simmering annoyance on her face, a look that made it clear the gravity girl was trying to control herself before she exploded.

Uraraka took a breath to calm herself, the let out a resigned sigh. "…I'm sorry, but I just can't help it," Uraraka confessed, having the decency to look at least a little guilty. She gently shook her head, a sign that she was at something of a loss for words. "I mean, I've been there ever since the beginning with Izuku. I've supported him where and when I could. Hell, I even worked with him during the one test where he and I had to face Bakugo and Tenya." She let out a troubled sigh before continuing, "And yet I ended up losing him. And to a woman a little more than twice the age of anyone in our class, no less."

"You know what your problem is?" Uraraka, as well as Mina and Tsuyu, perked up a bit and turned to face Yaoyorozu when she spoke. "You hesitated," the rich girl explained clearly, "You took too long in getting your feelings across, and now someone else swooped in and scooped Midoriya up before you could." Yaoyorozu leaned back in her seat, crossed her arms over her chest as she added, "I, too, know how it feels to hesitate until it's too late, although in my case my hesitation led to me being defeated by Tokoyami during the Sports Festival."

Tsuyu nodded once, acknowledging what her wealthy classmate had said. "Yeah Yaoyorozu, Fumikage and Dark Shadow really got you good kero." The frog girl turned to regard Uraraka, giving her a slightly more sympathetic look. "In a way, Mrs. Bakugo got you good as well Uraraka, by acting while you were still hesitating over what to do. Such is the way things tend to go if you allow them to."

The gravity girl let out a defeated sigh, showing that she knew what her friend had said was true. "…I guess that I don't have anyone to blame but myself," Uraraka admitted, feeling rather down about how things had developed for her. Gently shaking her head, she went on, "If only I didn't-"

"Hey, aren't you some of the girls from 1-A?" a female voice called out, cutting Uraraka off and making her and the others she was with turn to look to see who it was. To their surprise, it was Setsuna Tokage from class 1-B, having just entered the café. "Yeah, it is you girls," Setsuna said when she got close enough to not have to call out, "What brings you girls here?"

"We were just getting a bit of a light lunch out," Yaoyorozu replied, nodding once in a manner to say hello. The wealthy girl gave class 1-B's recommended female student a curious look. "How about you? What brings you in?"

Shrugging indifferently, Setsuna casually replied, "Oh, I was just stopping in for something sweet after I had just come back from watching this one movie that's in theaters. I didn't get any theater snacks since their prices are basically highway robbery. Seriously, it's like that greedy-ass cartoon crab is running the snacks booth at the theater." Having said her piece, Setsuna took her leave from talking to the 1-A girls, went to order a small pie slice and a mocha drink, had her small meal, and then left the café to continue on with her day.

* * *

Having had a good enough day out in town, Setsuna eventually returned to U.A. grounds, intending on heading over to the dorms for her class. In a surprise twist, the recommended girl of class 1-B met Izuku and Mitsuki by the front gates that led into the top hero school in Japan. "Oh, hey Midoriya," Setsuna greeted with a casual yet friendly wave, "Weird how we bumped into each other here."

"Yeah, I was just coming back after Mitsuki and I had a date today," Izuku replied, "She was even bringing me back here." The green-eyed boy was still amazed by the fact that he had not only gotten into a romantic relationship with a woman a little more than twice his age, but that said romantic relationship was still ongoing. If you had told an Izuku of the past that he would one day end up in a successful, lasting relationship with a girl, then he would have, with all due respect to you, laughed in your face.

…He also would have panicked if you told him said relationship would have ended up being with the mother of his childhood bully, but that's not here or where.

Mitsuki took her leave, saying that she'd been in Izuku's hair enough for the day. After Mitsuki had left, Izuku went into U.A. grounds, making a beeline for the direction the dorm buildings were in as he followed Setsuna, who took a similar path. They split up to head in two separate directions when Izuku saw Heights Alliance around the corner, and the green-eyed boy soon stepped foot into the common area on the first floor of his class's dorm building.

Walking over to the sofa, Izuku flopped down, a bit drained from his day. He did all manner of date things while out with Mitsuki, and while he had a blast, it was still a bit tiring, especially as he did said things with Mitsuki. That woman has a knack for running folks through the wringer, you know.

END, CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Author's notes;

I figured a little slice-of-life chapter where multiple mini-plots were all stringed together would make for a decent little break from the story's overall main line, as well as flesh out a few more bits here and there for some of the characters. Anyway, the next chapter will see a number of secrets revealed to the cast at large. It will be a bit of a tense chapter to be sure, and a number of characters will have trouble looking at others the same way.

But it's necessary in order to set up points that are to come later on down the line, as well as help lay the groundwork for a ship that's been hinted at multiple times over the course of the story thus far. Hopefully the bit of drama that will occur won't be too bad for some.


	33. Chapter 33

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter thirty-three: Secrets aired

The students of U.A.'s class 1-A were relaxing in their homeroom class one well enough day at school. Their homeroom teacher, Aizawa, was out at the moment, as he and other members of the school's staff were covering something in a meeting. As such, the twenty-five students were more or less left to their own devices, something that the underground hero normally would be very much opposed to, given the history of some of his brats, as he called them occasionally.

It would be to Aizawa's relief that his students were not causing all that much of a ruckus, actually. They were all milling about the classroom, chatting amicably with each other on what all they had to talk about. One such group of students consisted of Bakugo and his squad, that being the collection of Mina, Kaminari, Sero and Kirishima. As the explosive teen went on about how he scored a lot of points with his girlfriend Pony, Kirishima, with a mildly troubled look, let out a bit of a sigh.

This did not escape the notice of his friends, Bakugo most of all since the sigh interrupted him. Normally, the explosive teen would be pissed that someone interrupted him, but he noticed that his crimson-haired friend looked a bit sad, and that his sigh indicated some degree of feeling like he wasn't good enough for something. "…Oi, Kirishima." Everyone in Bakugo's group turned to look at him, Kirishima most of all. "You okay, man?" Bakugo asked, his usual attitude not there as he regarded the hardening quirk boy with a sympathetic look.

Kirishima, realizing that he wouldn't get out of this one, held his hands up at around level with his head, a gesture to show that he wasn't going to resist the questioning. "…Sorry, bro. It's just that I…" Another sigh, coupled with a gentle shake of his head, served as an interruption from what Kirishima was trying to explain to Bakugo. "…Hearing you talk about how you managed to get together with a girl, having heard of other guys in our class succeeding in getting with a girl, I just can't help but wish that I was that lucky."

Surprisingly, Bakugo did not get pissy or anything over Kirishima's attitude. In fact, he casually pointed right at the crimson haired boy. "…Listen, Kirishima," Bakugo began, "There is no way in hell that there doesn't exist a girl that would find you appealing." Moving the finger he was pointing at his friend with to the door leading into the classroom, Bakugo continued on, "You're a good man, and any girl out there would be lucky to have a guy like you show interest in them. You just need to keep having faith that you'll one day find the one."

Kirishima, although still looking like he was lacking a bit of faith in himself, smiled a bit in appreciation. "…Thanks, dude. Although I should still probably put some effort into shaping up a bit to be more appealing." A look of consideration crossed the hardening quirk boy's face as he remarked, "Maybe I should remodel my dorm room. I mean, Hagakure did say that my dorm room would place second in a contest of 'rooms girls wouldn't want their boyfriends to have'."

"Yeah, that was a big dick move on invisible girl's part," Bakugo remarked as he crossed his arms over his chest and nodding in agreement with what he said, with the others in his group aside from the still mildly-troubled Kirishima nodding along as well.

Over a ways away, the girls in class 1-A (aside from Mina who was still agreeing with Bakugo about how Hagakure was a bit careless in what she said to Kirishima) were all gathered around as they talked about what was on their mind. "So Yaoyorozu," Hagakure began, her tone making it clear she had something juicy to talk about, "I heard word that your father, at one point, tried to reach an agreement with Todoroki's dad where the two of them would set you and Todoroki up to be an item."

The wealthy girl sputtered a bit before turning her head to the side somewhat. "I…did hear that from Todoroki himself, yes," Yaoyorozu began. She gently shook her head, showing that the subject was one that made her somewhat uncomfortable. "I still cannot believe that my father would try to control my life in such a fashion."

Hatsume, who was one of the new students added to class 1-A due to recent changes in how the staff ran things at U.A., crossed her arms over her chest as she wore a look of mildly serious consideration. "…Yeah, with all due respect I don't see a relationship between the two of you working out. I mean, all that you and Todoroki have in common is the fact that you both come from _very_ well-off families, although you do vastly outstrip him in said regard."

"There's also the fact that Todoroki is in love with and now currently dating Reiko over in class 1-B," Tsuyu pointed out with a croak, "To his credit, Todoroki is doing quite well, and Reiko seems perfectly happy to be with him kero." The frog girl nodded once before adding, "The same goes for the surprising couple of Pony and Bakugo."

"I'm still surprised that someone as sweet and bashful as Pony would agree to go out with someone as violent and short-tempered as Bakugo," Kyoka remarked. The rock lover took a quick look in the direction where Izuku was talking to Tenya, Todoroki and Shinso, before she returned her attention to the girls she was talking to. "…But then again, it's not the first time that a sweet, bashful person hooked up with someone who's violent."

Uraraka could tell right off the bat that Kyoka was talking about Izuku, was able to tell that she had shot a quick look at the green-eyed boy briefly. The gravity girl let out a troubled, resigned sigh before she gently shook her head. "…I still can't believe that I was too slow to act in getting Izuku to notice my feelings for him. And now look." Briefly gesturing over to where the boy she had a crush on was talking to his friends, Uraraka continued, "He's now in a relationship with a woman a little more than twice his age."

The other girls in the group proceeded to try and comfort their brunette friend, telling her things such as how Izuku would have been lucky to have been confessed to by her and whatnot. Even so, none of it changed the fact that her friend, her crush, was now off the market for her. And it was causing Uraraka no small amount of emotional pain, let me tell you.

…

The students of 1-A weren't the only ones with what was essentially free period at the moment. Over in class 1-B, the students there were amicably chatting with one another as they waited for their teacher to get back from whatever meeting he and the other U.A. staff members had to take care of right now. Over in one corner of the 1-B homeroom, Monoma was talking to the five new boys that had been placed into 1-B due to recent changes.

"And onto point one-hundred and forty-two out of twelve-thousand on why we must save U.A. from falling into anarchy at the hands of the Neanderthals over in class 1-A," the blonde boy began, but he was cut off when Itsuka, who passed by the group at that moment, whacked Monoma on the back of his head with a chop from her large hand, which she shrank back to normal after she had disciplined her unruly classmate.

The class rep of 1-B gave Monoma a dry, mildly exasperated look as she gently shook her head. "You really need to stop it with this hating on 1-A, Monoma. Yes, a bit of healthy competition should be between us and 1-A, but you've taken that healthy competition and turned it into bitter rivalry." Hands on her hips, Itsuka continued, "And I'm not the only one here in our class who thinks that the pointless harping on everyone in 1-A has got to stop. Some of us here are actually friends with the students over there, you know."

"She's got a point," Akuma remarked in a mildly gruff tone as he crossed his arms over his chest, "Hell, I'm friends with Sakaki, although the two of us have known each other since before we were both enrolled here at U.A."

"Juzo's pretty chill with Midoriya and Shinso," Omono pointed out, "Hell, Yosetsu even has a crush on Yaoyorozu over in that class!"

Monoma, as he sighed while gently face palming, replied, "And you all wonder why I have come to question if he's alright in the head or not."

Hearing that from Monoma prompted Itsuka to strike the blonde boy in the head again with an oversized hand. "There's nothing wrong with Yosetsu liking Momo," Itsuka scolded, "Likewise, there's nothing wrong with Reiko now being in a relationship with Todoroki, as well as nothing being wrong with Pony now being in a relationship with Bakugo." With a final glare at Monoma before she left, Itsuka said, "You have _got_ to change that tune of yours."

Having said her peace, the class 1-B rep left the boys, heading over to where the other girls in class were. From what Itsuka saw as she approached, Reiko and Pony were the center of attention since the other girls were all talking to them. Reaching the group, Itsuka grabbed a chair and sat down to join them, drawing their attention in the process.

"Oh, hey Itsuka," Reiko greeted in a friendly enough tone, "Yeah, Pony and I were just telling the girls here about the double date from two days ago where Todoroki and I went out with Pony and her guy."

Itsuka nodded in acknowledgement, as well as a hint of amusement. "Did anything good happen?" Itsuka asked.

"Oh!" Pony suddenly exclaimed, "We meet Midoriya mom while we out. She giggle cute when Bakugo introduce me to her."

The other girls all giggled a bit at that, although Kinoko sighed a bit in a resigned manner. This did not escape the ever-attentive attention of Itsuka, who right away turned around to face the mushroom girl. "…You're still struggling to work up the courage to confess to Kirishima, aren't you Kinoko?" the class 1-B rep asked, sympathetic concern clear on her face.

Kinoko, with a very troubled look on her face, gently shook her head, a sign that she was still at something of a loss. "I just don't know what to do. I mean, how can I tell Eijiro how I feel about him? To make things worse, what if he rejects me?" Kinoko scrunched up into a fetal position on the chair she sat on, her arms around her knees and her face pressed into her knees. "I don't think that I could take that."

As Kinoko was being worried and depressed, the other girls in the group looked on in concern. It was Itsuka, who partly wanted to see KinoShima (that's the couple name that she came up with for Kinoko and Kirishima) become a thing, who placed her hands on the mushroom girl's shoulders, made her look up at her. Itsuka gave her shy, timid friend a firm, serious look as they locked eyes with one another.

"…Kinoko, listen to me." Itsuka's tone made it clear that she was serious, that she would be having Kinoko's attention as she talked. "You _will_ get your heart across to Kirishima, you hear me? You will be able to tell him how you feel, Kinoko." The mushroom girl was surprised by the words of her classmate, although she was feeling a bit better after the pep talk.

She was about to say something, but before Kinoko could get one word out, the intercom system came on with some crackling noises from the speaker in the one upper corner of the room along the top of the wall. This likewise got the attention of everyone else in the classroom, as well as everyone over in 1-A since the intercom speaker in their classroom crackled to life as well.

…

"…What in the name of Vishnu is happening now?" Mina muttered to herself as she and all of her classmates in the 1-A homeroom looked up at the intercom speaker.

"Good morning, U.A.!" a random female voice called out over the intercom system; it didn't sound like any of the women on the school's staff, so it had to be a student.

"Who here all wants to know what makes the lucky ladies in the hero course here tick?" a second female voice said over the intercom.

"Heh, I sure do," the first female voice said, "And I'm certain that we aren't the only ones here who wants to know what goes on in those girls' heads!"

As the students in 1-A all looked on in confusion, they turned to look at one another, with a fair number of the boys looking right at the girls. Bakugo, while looking at where the rest of the girls all sat in the classroom with a suspicious and mildly confused look on his face, pointed up to the intercom system. "…What manner of bullshittery is this?"

The girls all returned confused looks to the explosive teen, with Kyoka even shrugging in a confused manner. The confusion in one classroom, however, did nothing to hinder the two girls that were apparently using the intercom system to do something of a gossip corner-type segment as part of some morning announcements. A clap from the intercom speaker drew everyone's attention back to it.

"Well, students of U.A., do we have a treat for you!" the first girl said, "The two of us were able to…borrow…some certain reading material from the hero course girls, and we're going to take the time here to share what we have with all of you!"

Right away, Shinso face palmed, drawing the attention of the boys that he was talking to. "Those two girls are going to get themselves into _so_ much trouble," the brainwasher remarked, sounding more exasperated than anything else.

The first girl in the announcements cleared her throat before she began, sounding like she was reading from something. "Like, seriously! Why does Momo have to keep reminding everyone about how fabulously rich she is?"

Yaoyorozu, since she heard that she was mentioned by name, looked a bit confused, as well as suspicious. The wealthy girl's attention, as well as the attention of the other girls, were drawn over to where Bakugo and his group were hanging, given that they heard Mina let out a worried gasp. "Hey, Mina!" The pink-skinned girl turned to see Yaoyorozu look at her, her expression showing that she was suspicious. "I'm…not causing you any problems, am I?"

Mina chuckled a bit nervously, her gaze darting from side to side as she poked the tips of her index fingers together. "Umm, look Momo, this isn't what it looks-"

"I mean, come on!" the first girl in the announcements said as she went on, "I'm starting to get the feeling that she's intentionally bringing it up and only acting like she's doing it without meaning to! Sorry Momo, but not all of us were lucky enough to have been born with silver spoons shoved firmly up our asses!"

The pink-skinned girl's eyes widened in shock as that last bit was read over the intercom. Yaoyorozu looked rather annoyed with Mina, but the other girls had a mix of expressions; as for the boys in class, most of them started laughing, with Bakugo being the one to find the most humor in how Mina apparently describes the rich ponytailed girl of 1-A. Similarly, the other three boys in the 'squad' had to suppress some snickering.

"Ooh, I want to do the next one," the second girl in the announcements said. Clearing her throat as she sounded like she was picking up something, the second girl said as her words reached the whole of the student body, "I had a really weird dream last night where Tamaki took a bite out of Mirio's ass, then he turned into a second Mirio, which meant that there were two goofballs going around the place."

Everyone in class 1-A looked on in confusion, wondering just whose journal or diary was being read from now. After a few moments, everyone got their answer when Hagakure declared loudly, "They must have Nejire-sempai's diary! Why else would it mention both Mirio-sempai and Tamaki-sempai in the same passage?"

…

Over in the 3-A classroom, everyone, even the teacher, looked up at the intercom speaker at what those two girls were doing went on. "When I woke up and thought about it, I began to wonder if, in real life, Tamaki really _could_ turn into others by eating ass, given how his quirk works."

As everyone in the class started laughing, Nejire turned to look at where Tamaki sat and said, "Tamaki, I am _SO_ sorry!" Tamaki only moaned in resigned embarrassment as he scrunched up into a fetal positon at his desk, his head down so no one could see his face.

…

Back in the 1-A classroom, after the first years settled down from laughing about what one of their sempais in the third year wrote about, the two girls that were reading aloud from the private writings of the hero course girls continued on.

"Ooh, here's a good one," the first girl said as she picked up a journal, "Ahem." After clearing her throat, the first girl read aloud, "I still can't believe that Izuku's now in a relationship with Baukgo's mom. I mean, seriously! What the hell happened there?!"

As the reading went on, Uraraka let out a mildly frightened gasp as she quickly covered her mouth, hoping that just the girls she was talking to would notice the movement. Sadly for her, however, Bakugo and his squad looked over at that time since Mina turned to see how Uraraka was going to hold up.

To make things even worse for Uraraka, Bakugo had noticed that the gravity girl had quickly moved her hands to cover her mouth, and in a jerk move decided to not show mercy. "Holy shit!" Bakugo exclaimed in clear amusement, "I think those girls are now reading from Round Face's diary now! And she's jealous that my mom's dating Deku!"

A number of students in the class started laughing, although to his credit all Aoyama did was say something along the lines of how he knew it all along. Tokoyami was, respectfully, not among those who were laughing, but Dark Shadow was for some odd reason, as it was looking in Uraraka's direction while pointing and laughing at the embarrassed gravity girl. The bird headed boy of 1-A had to scold his shadow familiar, telling it to behave itself.

As Uraraka nervously glanced around the classroom, she noticed that Izuku, with a wide-eyed look of shocked surprise on his face, was looking right at her. Uraraka prayed that this would just end, but the girls reading from the gathered diaries wouldn't be having that. "I don't know what Mrs. Bakugo is doing with Izuku, but whatever it is, I bet that I can do a _way_ better job at it. Especially when it comes to making him into a man."

That last bit sent a lot of 1-A into laughing hysterics, Bakugo especially. A few had the decency to not laugh, although what pained and embarrassed the gravity girl the most was the way that Izuku was still looking at her, as if he couldn't believe what was going on, what the words of his friends being read over the intercom said. The green-haired cinnamon roll normally would object to the very idea of someone's private writings being broadcasted in such a fashion, but since said musings were written by one of his friends, and it talked about him and in such a manner, there was no way he could help but be shocked.

"Let me do the next one here," the second girl in the announcements said, clearing her throat before she began. "My class went to the tennis courts earlier yesterday morning, and the twenty-five of us played there while everyone in class 1-A played in the court next to the one that we were in."

"Oh, this has to be a girl over in 1-B," Hagakure remarked, "This is going to be good!"

The other 1-A girls (even Mina, over where she sat with Bakugo and the others) turned to regard their invisible classmate, with Kyoka even giving a shocked and appalled look. Seeing all of the looks she was getting, Hagakure defended, "Oh, come on! You know how I like gossip!"

"I saw Yaoyorozu, one of the two girls in 1-A who's mean to me, hit a tennis ball with her racket, and that ball ended up striking her perverted classmate Mineta right in his tennis balls," the second girl continued, "Sort of like what happened the previous time that all of us were playing tennis, only it was Eijiro's electric friend who did it that time."

As the diary reading continued over the intercom, the 1-A girls looked on with some confusion, although they all turned to regard Yaoyorozu and Hagakure. "…You two are bullying a girl over in 1-B?" Tsuyu asked, "That's not very nice kero."

Scoffing incredulously, Yaoyorozu said, "Hagakure and I are _not_ bullying anyone over in 1-B, Tsuyu." Crossing her arms over her chest, the rich girl continued, "But now that you mention it, I would have to guess that those girl are now reading from the diary of that creep Komori, since neither of us feel okay being around her, and we have made that point known." The plastic headband that Hagakure wore on her head moved up and down in a way that showed that the invisible girl was nodding in agreement with Yaoyorozu.

The diary reading continued on, with the second girl in the announcements reading, "Pretty much everyone in 1-A laughed when the pervert got hit in his special place by Yaoyorozu's tennis ball. I think everyone in my class laughed as well when we all saw since we were in the court right next to 1-A, but I wasn't paying all that much attention to it since I was looking over at Eijiro instead. I mean, why wouldn't I want to look at him? Eijiro's the most attractive guy ever, not to mention how he's not only really tough, but he's also rather chivalrous as well." Everyone in 1-A looked on in confusion, although both Yaoyorozu and Hagakure (the latter couldn't be seen, though) had varying looks of disgust on their faces.

"…Oh my God," the wealthy girl remarked in a somewhat disgusted tone, "Don't tell me that Kinoko actually has a _crush_ on someone!"

"Oi, Ponytail!" Bakugo snapped when he turned to face the direction the 1-A girls were sitting in, "Pinky and the other girls here are right in how you and Invisible Girl really need to zip it with giving Shrooms a hard time!" Jerking a thumb at the intercom speaker in the classroom, Bakugo continued as he glared at Yaoyorozu and Hagakure, "Although I don't have any idea who in the hell that Eijiro guy that Shrooms is talking about is."

Bakugo's squad all looked at him with a mix of confused looks, and it was Mina who spoke up. "Umm, Bakugo," the pink-skinned girl began in a tone that was mildly unsure due to confusion, "Eijiro is Kirishima's first name."

"Wait, what's going on now?" Kirishima asked, looking very much confused.

Bakugo turned to face his crimson-haired friend, have a shrug. "…Huh. I told you that you'd eventually find a girl that would like you, and here we go." The explosive teen jerked a thumb over at the intercom speaker in the room, never taking his eyes off of Kirishima. "Turns out that there is a girl that has a crush on you.'

"THERE'S A GIRL THAT HAS A CRUSH ON ME?!" Kirishima exclaimed, very clearly surprised by the news that he was just given. Bakugo nodded calmly a few times in the affirmative while Mina patted Kirishima on the back in a congratulatory manner; Kaminari and Sero even applauded the hardening quirk boy, celebrating their crimson haired friend's success in finally finding someone interested in him.

…

Things were not as celebratory over in the class 1-B homeroom. In fact, a number of the students in class were surprised with what all they were hearing as the reading of their mushroom-themed classmate's diary continued on over the intercom. "I still wish that I can be right there next to Eijiro, laughing with him, loving him," the second girl said as she read on from Kinoko's diary, "But I'm still being kept from being embraced by and held in his arms. The chain link fence that separated the two courts was one barrier, but my own nerves, my worries that he might reject me, are another. If it wasn't for all of that, then maybe I would have long since told Eijiro how I feel about him by now."

As the talking in the 1-B homeroom reached something of a fever pitch, Monoma turned around to face where Kinoko sat in the classroom. "Oh my god!" the blonde boy exclaimed while pointing at the mushroom girl, "You aren't afraid of that red-haired idiot over in 1-A! You're in love with him!" Monoma declaring it made most everyone cry out in surprise; Kinoko could only put her face on her arms as she laid at her desk, wishing that this was all a bad dream.

"Hey, zip it, you idiots!" Itsuka scolded her classmates, "So Kinoko has a crush on a boy! It's nothing to hoot and holler about!"

Kurama, one of the few who was not in hysterics over the reveal of Kinoko having a crush on someone, raised hjis right hand as he wore a look of confusion on his face. "…Umm, who in the hell is this Eijiro guy that, from the sounds of it, seems to be the boy that Komori has a crush on?"

Tetsutetsu, with a look of curious confusion on his own face, crossed his arms over his chest as he turned to look where all of the girls in 1-B were gathered. "Yeah, I have no idea who the hell this Eijiro joker is, either," Tetsutetsu said, "Yo Kinoko, can I get some clarification here, please?" The mushroom girl, too embarrassed because her private thoughts were not only broadcast over the whole of U.A. but now her crush on Kirishima was made public knowledge before she could have told him herself, could only sink down in her desk, laying her face on her arms as they laid on her desk's surface as she moaned in embarrassment.

…

Back in class 1-A, everyone was continuing to look up at the intercom speaker when the first girl doing the announcements said, "Well that was interesting! Ooh, which one should we do next?"

"I sort of like the looks of-" the second girl began, but she was cut off when the sound of a door being forced open came from the intercom speaker.

"What in the name of Gilgamesh is wrong with the two of you?!" the gruff, angry and commanding voice of Aizawa yelled, sending the two girls that were doing the announcements into something of a panic.

"You both have a lot to answer for!" came the equally frim and disappointed voice of Sekijiro, clearly sounding like he and Aizawa were glaring at the two girls who were broadcasting the private writings of the hero course girls.

In Aizawa's homeroom classroom, Shinso let out a bit of a chuckle as he heard his teacher slash mentor slash foster father lay down the law on those irresponsible girls. "Hoo boy, won't that be a fun show to watch," the brainwasher remarked in clear amusement.

* * *

Later that afternoon, after classes were done for the day, the staff of U.A. had to do an emergency meeting due to the incident where two female students of the school had not only stolen a bunch of private journals and diaries from hero course girls, but broadcasted the content of some of said books for all of the school to hear. There was clear disappointment on the faces of many of the staff members at the meeting; even Nezu, who normally looked more or less happy all of the time, had shades of displeasure on his face.

"I can't believe that we didn't know about what was going on until after the meeting to go over a few points in regards to the foreign high school visiting Japan to see us," Snipe remarked as he gently shook his head, clearly having a bit of disappointment in himself for how some of the girls in the hero course were failed as badly as they were by the staff, of which Snipe was a part.

Yu Takeyama, also known as the pro hero Mt. Lady and one of the newest additions to the U.A. staff due to the increased need for security, gestured to the marksman pro hero. "Well in our defense, the announcements didn't play on the intercom speaker in this office since Nezu turned off that functionality in order to let the meeting go on uninterrupted."

At that point, both Aizawa and Sekijiro walked into the meeting room, having returned from dealing with some matter of business. "…As it turned out," Aizawa said with a grumpy huff as he and Sekijiro collapsed into their respective chairs at the meeting table, "It was a pair of girls from the second year general studies course that had pulled that stupid stunt."

"Aizawa and I took it up with the girls' teacher," Sekijiro said, sounding mildly disgusted, "But that woman only felt like giving the girls a week's worth of afterschool detention." The class 1-B homeroom teacher crossed his arms over his chest, clearly looking disappointed. "And that was only _after_ Aizawa and I complained to her about her students' lack of respect for other students. I have no doubt that she's unwilling to punish those two girls any more than that."

Nezu, closing his eyes to have a look of being calm, let out a resigned sigh. "…Yes, as the homeroom teacher of those girls, Ms. Hammerlock has the right to decide on how to punish the students in her homeroom class." Opening his eyes, the quirked animal principal continued, "But as principal of U.A., I have ultimate say in how a specific student is punished. You recall how I overruled Aizawa's decision to want to expel Mineta a while ago, correct?"

"As much as I would have liked to see the little pervert punished for the stunt he had pulled during the class's field trip over in Royal Woods," the underground hero began, "I understand that recent events necessitate that as many heroes are on deck as possible. Additionally, Mineta having saved some of Japan's most prominent figures from certain death during the recent monster attack has made him something of a national hero, so expelling him would have put the school in a bad light." Aizawa gave Nezu a knowing look, one eyebrow arched in a wry manner. "…I can only hope such leniency won't be shown to those two gen ed course girls."

"Given the nature of their offence," Nezu began, his tone sounding resigned, "As well as what we can reasonably assume they had done in order to carry out said offence, I have enough justification to have those girls suspended at an absolute minimum. Chances are that I may even straight up expel the both of them."

"It's always a sad day when U.A. has to expel even one of its students," Toshinori remarked in a grim tone, "But what those two girls had done is not something that can be swept under the rug."

The other staff members at the meeting all nodded in agreement with the former symbol of peace. After the agreement was made, Nezu turned to some papers that he had sitting in front of him. "…I'll have to do some background checking on the two girls who stole and read the private journals of some of the hero course girls over the school's intercom system, but that won't take too long. There's one thing that I wanted to go over with you all, a final point from what we were talking about in the meeting before this one."

The other staff members at the meeting all turned to regard their boss with looks of curiosity, the four new hires especially. "Oh?" Pixie-Bob asked as she, along with Mt. Lady, Mirko and Ryukyu all looked over where Nezu sat at the one end of the meeting table, "So it's something about that foreign high school that's coming here to Japan so a team of its quirked students can face a team of U.A. students from the hero course in a team battle." The member of the Wild, Wild Pussycats had a look of mild confusion on her face. "…What was the foreign high school in question, again?"

The new hires to the U.A. staff turned to face Aizawa's direction when he let out a troubled sigh. "…It's the local high school of that Royal Woods place over in Michigan," the underground hero said, "Simply called Royal Woods High." Aizawa turned to face Pixie-Bob specifically, giving her a serious look. "…We've been discussing the upcoming team battle between the two schools since before you and the other new members of the staff were hired, and it's the main reason why I cast my vote to hire you, Pixie-Bob."

Sekijiro nodded in agreement with Aizawa before he said, "It's also the reason why we've been having you spar with our respective homeroom classes as much as we've been doing."

"Yeah, I heard about some of the sparing you two have been having your students do with Pixie-Bob here," Mirko remarked. The bunny pro hero turned to face where Nezu sat. "So boss, you said that you had a final point on the upcoming team battle event."

Nodding once in confirmation, Nezu remarked, "Yes, I have it right here." The quirked animal principal flipped through his papers before he found the one he was looking for. He gave it a quick scan before he looked up from the papers and to his fellow U.A. staff. "…The party from Royal Woods High will be here in five days."

The announcement from Nezu made the others at the meeting all go wide-eyed with a bit of shock. "The party, from what I've been able to gather," Nezu went on, "Consists of the school's principal, ten quirked students that make up the school's team for the team battle, and two others that are being brought along as guests."

"Do we know if Visionquest is part of the Royal Woods High team?" Aizawa asked, a clear hint of worry in his tone.

Nezu gently shook his head. "Unfortunately, I have no idea on the identity of any of the students on the Royal Woods High team. All that I have is that there will be a total of ten quirked students that will make up the team that represents the school that we here at U.A. will have to send a team of our hero course students to face."

"Hang on a minute here," Mt. Lady said as she skimmed through a copy of the info that she had, "It says here that this Royal Woods High place isn't even a hero high school. It's just a regular, run of the mill public high school." Looking over to the underground hero, Mt. Lady said, "And yet they have you worried, Aizawa?"

Aizawa let out a troubled, resigned sigh. "…If what I fear ends up coming true, then not only is there _no way_ that U.A. will be able to win the team battle event, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of the U.A. students that takes part ends up horribly injured, if not _worse_." Aizawa had an involuntary shudder as he recalled, during the time his homeroom class had that field trip to the very town that the opposing high school is coming from, what ended up happening to seven of the boys in his class, with said event being the main reason why he wanted to expel Mineta in the first place.

The underground hero hoped like hell that he was being paranoid, that the team from Royal Woods High wouldn't have anyone with a quirk of _that_ level. It would be a great relief to not just him, but all of U.A.'s staff, if that did indeed ended up being the case.

END, CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Author's notes;

The reading of those journals was the best that I could come up with to expose Uraraka's jealousy of Mitsuki dating Izuku, Kinoko being in love with Kirishima, and Mina's annoyance with Yaoyorozu's tendency to show off her wealthy status (yes, Mina's displeasure with Yaoyorozu in that regard IS a plot point), but now that the cast at large knows about all of this, things can go full steam ahead. Something else that's going on full steam ahead is the aforementioned plot of a foreign high school visiting Japan to see U.A. for something, with said high school in question being confirmed in this chapter to be Royal Woods High.

Sorry if some of you aren't amused by the idea of this story pseudo-crossing over with some of my non-BNHA works, but it had been a long time coming, something that I had been planning on since before I got the first chapter of this story out. Remember how I've been occasionally saying that the characters in this story were going to learn just how big of a world is there outside of the protective walls of U.A.? Well, that's going to kick off in earnest starting in the next chapter. Yes, this is the last chapter of the 'Extra arc', and the next chapter after this one will be the first chapter of what I'm calling the 'Team battle arc', a truly epic event that I'm aiming to make a truly spectacular, action-packed arc that will have more of a concentration of battle than any arc before it.

Don't go making any assumptions about what will happen in the next arc yet, though; you'll be surprised with what actually ends up happening.


	34. Chapter 34

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter thirty-four: The exhibition battles mini-arc, part one

Kagura Hojo, the principal of Vulcan High, was a bit amused by the guests that her highly prestigious hero high school (it's prestigious if you ask her, at least), who were meeting with her in her office at her school right now. There were two guests; a woman about her age, who was the principal of a high school located over in the United States, and a twelve-year-old boy who there was no way could be a student at the American high school that the woman who was sitting across from Kagura ran.

The woman looked roughly the same as Kagura herself, except the American woman was Caucasian whereas Kagura was Asian, and the American woman also had a more slender body than the well-fed principal of Vulcan High. The woman was also dressed relatively casually, what with her loose-fitting t-shirt of pastel pink, a pair of women's jeans held up with a belt, a pair of light brown slip on shoes that showed her white socks, and around her neck a simple lanyard that had a set of keys attached to it.

As for the twelve-year-old boy, he wore a long-sleeved white shirt under an orange shirt that was open in the front, a pair of tan-colored cargo pants held up with a belt, gray socks and white shoes that had red stripes on them. The boy was Caucasian, same as the American principal woman; the boy also had snow white hair, freckles under his eyes, and a noticeable front tooth that had a bit of a chip in it. The boy stood on the American principal woman's left, his arms held behind his back as he looked at Kagura.

Wanting to get this show on the road, Kagura gestured to the American principal woman. "It certainly is both a pleasure and surprise to receive visitors from a high school located over in the United States, Mrs. Butterbean." To the piqued interest of Vulcan High's principal, the boy turned to face the American principal woman, apparently called Mrs. Butterbean, and spoke to her in English. After the boy was done, Mrs. Butterbean spoke in English to Kagura, who was a bit annoyed as she did not understand the language.

After the American principal was finished, the boy spoke up again, and thankfully he was now talking in Japanese. "Well I was aiming to prove to the school board back in my hometown that serious considerations ought to be taken to work on the quirks of the students attending Michigan schools. They agreed on the condition that I can prove that the quirked students of my school can match up against the students of Japan's top hero high school U.A., as it's one of the foremost leading examples of high schools in the world dedicated to educating and training the heroes of tomorrow's society. If my school's team wins a team battle event against whatever team that U.A. throws against us, then schools in not just our school district but in district all over the state of Michigan will be improved for the better thanks to more focus being afforded to the populace of our students who have quirks."

Kagura kept her eyes on Mrs. Butterbean while gesturing to the boy who spoke in Japanese. "I assume that this boy is acting as a translator for you, Mrs. Butterbean?" The boy turned to face the American principal and said a quick line, drawing a nod of confirmation out of her and a line of English that the boy translated.

"Mrs. Butterbean told me that it was okay to introduce myself. My name is Lincoln Loud, and I was brought along despite how I'm still in elementary school because I'm fluent in Japanese. I'm needed here to serve as a translator for those in the party that don't speak Japanese."

The principal of Vulcan High arched a wry eyebrow of amusement as she regarded the white-haired boy. Before speaking, Kagura turned her attention back to Mrs. Butterbean. "…Wouldn't the language barrier make things a bit difficult for you here?" The American principal said something in English that Lincoln ended up translating, a translation that made Kagura chuckle a bit in amusement.

"My students don't all have to speak Japanese to defeat U.A.'s team."

Both Mrs. Butterbean and Lincoln looked at Kagura in curious amusement as she chuckled. After she had calmed down a bit, the principal of Vulcan High remarked, "You guys are serious about aiming to defeat U.A." Letting out a knowing sigh, Kagura said, "Look, Americans. Even the top students of my school, the prestigious hero high school known as Vulcan High, could not stand up to U.A. in the end. What makes you think that whatever team of students from your high school, which is a regular public high school and not a hero high school, can stand up to the team that Japan's top hero high school will throw at you?"

Lincoln took a short moment to translate what Kagura had said to Mrs. Butterbean who, after she got the translation, merely smiled calmly, a hint of amusement on her face. The American principal spoke calmly as she gave her answer to Kagura, which Lincoln translated for her. "She says that she has confidence that Royal Woods High's team of ten quirked students can not only take on whatever team U.A. throws at them, but that they will still win. She says that it is a rather poor idea to underestimate 'Americans' as you have just called us."

Kagura looked like she was going to speak up, but she was cut off when Mrs. Butterbean said something in English, which Lincoln translated. "She wants to know if you're interested in a bit of a proposition."

The principal of Vulcan High, with her expression changing to show that her interest was piqued, relaxed a bit. "…What does she have in mind?"

After he made the translations from Kagura to Butterbean, Lincoln proceeded to do the translations from Butterbean to Kagura. "Mrs. Butterbean wants to know if you would be interested in an exhibition team battle between the Royal Woods High team and a team of students from your school here."

"Oh, so you want to help me show off the might of my school's top students," Kagura replied, amused by the American principal's challenge, "Well, you should have said so from the start. I bet that all of Japan would like to hear that ten of Vulcan High's best were able to defeat the ten Americans that Royal Woods High sent to face U.A."

Once more, translations back and forth were made before Lincoln spoke for Mrs. Butterbean. "She didn't mean that ten of your school's students would face all ten students on the Royal Woods High team. Mrs. Butterbean said that she wants _one-hundred_ of your school's quirked students to face just _one_ student from the Royal Woods High team."

Kagura could not help but burst out laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of the challenge. The scope of what the American principal was suggesting made Vulcan High's principal have a bit of amused hysterics. After Kagura had calmed down enough, Mrs. Butterbean, with a dry, serious look on her face, said something that Lincoln had to translate. "Mrs. Butterbean is being serious. She wants the exhibition team battle to be a one-hundred versus one affair."

Gesturing to Mrs. Butterbean, Kagura said, "You must be absurdly overconfident if you think one student of yours acting on his or her own can seriously match up against a force of one-hundred of Vulcan High's top students." Shrugging indifferently, Kagura continued, "But fine, I'll humor you. In fact, I can get the exhibition team battle set up and ready to go in my school's arena by later this afternoon. You can bring the rest of the party from your town by and watch as you send one of your own to their doom."

Lincoln provided the translations, and Mrs. Butterbean, looking similarly amused as Kagura but for a different reason, calmly gave her reply. Lincoln, with a mildly shocked look of surprise on his face, looked like he was asking the American principal if she was sure, to which she looked to say that she was. With a gentle shake of his head, Lincoln turned to face Kagura and told her what Mrs. Butterbean had said.

"…She says that it sounds like Allison will be having fun later today."

* * *

Over at U.A. High School, the Big Three had gathered all of the students in the 1-A and 1-B classes in the large classroom where the joint math exam was held a while ago. The trio of third years stood in the front of the classroom, and all eyes were on them. Nejire, the lone girl in the Big Three, clapped her hands together a few times to get all of the first years to calm down and focus on her, making it clear that she was the one leading the charge here.

"Okay, everyone!" Nejire said, a hint of excitement in her tone, "Now, I'm sure you all are excited because the big team battle event where a team representing U.A. will face off against a team from the visiting high school from the United States is coming up in a couple of days, and what's more is that party from the school we're competing against, Royal Woods High, already touched down on Japanese soil a few hours ago."

"If I may be so bold as to ask a few questions, Nejire-sempai!" Tenya said in a fairly formal manner, standing straight up from his seat as he shot his right hand straight up into the air. The lone girl of the Big Three giggled a bit in amusement, entertained by how 'cute' as she called it the class rep of 1-A was being, so she gestured to him with her right hand, giving him the okay to proceed. "Do we have any information available on the U.A. team that we can expect?"

At that prompting, it was Tamaki who stepped forward, standing next to Nejire as Mirio hung back. "All that Nejire, Mirio and I got from Aizawa-sensei and Sekijiro-sensei on the matter is that the team representing Royal Woods High consists of ten students. That being said, I figured that only ten of you will be needed for the team battle."

Nejire clapped her hands together, getting everyone to turn back to face her. "With Tamaki having said that, we're here mainly to determine which ten out of the combined fifty of you will be put into the team representing U.A." Seeing the surprised looks on the faces of the first years, Nejire explained, "You kids are the best of U.A.'s brightest year yet, so the boys here and I all agreed that we ought to let as many of you take the spotlight as possible, while us third years hang back and cheer you first years on."

"I was figuring," Tamaki began, "As we'll only need ten of you to face the ten representing Royal Woods High, that the first four out of you lot that will be put onto the U.A. team will be Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, Juzo and Setsuna. Those four are all recommended students, and as such are among the most logical choices to put onto U.A.'s team."

"I'm…not so sure if I would be a good choice for the U.A. team, Tamaki-sempai," Yaoyorozu said, a hint of annoyed bitterness in her tone as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I mean, there's a fairly good chance that the _silver spoons shoved firmly up my ass_ may get in the way of the rest of the U.A. team."

"Those were my private thoughts, Momo!" Mina snapped defensively as she stood up from where she sat.

The Big Three looked at the arguing first years with varying looks of concern on their faces. "Is this related to how some Gen Ed course girls got ahold of a lot of journals from us hero course girls and read them over the intercom two days ago?" Nejire asked.

Itsuka, from where she sat, let out a resigned sigh as she stood up from her seat in the room. The class rep of 1-B nodded a few times in confirmation, although the resigned look on her face made it clear that she wished that things hadn't happened the way that they did a few days ago. "Things are still a bit tense, Nejire-sempai," Itsuka remarked. Gesturing to where Yaoyorozu and Mina were bitterly arguing with one another, Itsuka added, "Although it's mostly in 1-A, as you can clearly see."

Nejire, wincing a bit in embarrassment, remarked, "Oh, it's not just you first year girls who have to deal with that. I myself had my privacy violated that day." Turning to face Tamaki, the lone girl of the Big Three said, "Again, Tamaki, I'm so sorry if you hearing about that dream I had about you and Mirio made you uncomfortable."

"It's okay, Nejire," Tamaki replied with a resigned, very mildly exasperated sigh, "Dreams tend to be weird, but for the record I refuse to find out if what you dreamed about would actually work in real life." Jerking a thumb over his shoulder to point out where Mirio stood, Tamaki added, "And I'm pretty sure I speak for Mirio when I say that he won't exactly be in the mood to find out, either. You're really lucky that he was out sick the day those Gen Ed course girls pulled that stunt of theirs."

Some of the first years, remembering what exactly Nejire wrote about in her journal about that specific dream of hers, couldn't help but chuckle. Wanting to get things back on track, as well as get the first years to stop thinking about how she dreamed about Tamaki eating Mirio's ass, Nejire quickly clapped her hands together to get everyone to settle down and focus on her, so she could get things back on track.

"We need to focus on what all we're going to do for the ten among you all that will make up the U.A. team that will face off against the team of ten that Royal Woods High is bringing to the table," the sole Big Three girl said. Turning around, Nejire walked to the board behind the desk that she and Tamaki stood in front of; Mirio, who had been hanging back since the start of the meeting, stood between the desk and the board.

Picking up a stick of chalk, Nejire used it to write on the board, writing the names of Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, Juzo and Setsuna on the board, going in that order from top to bottom. "We'll go with what Tamaki suggested and put all four of you first years that got in on recommendation onto the U.A. team," Nejire said after she finished writing on the board and turned to face all of the first years. "Alright, then. Who should be the remaining six that will go into the team of ten that will be representing U.A.?"

Raising a hand, Juzo remarked, "I think that Midoriya's a solid contender. I mean, the dude did win that tournament against Akuma's old school a while ago, not to mention how he's been trained by friggin' All Might." Nejire turned to face Tamaki and Mirio, the latter of those two nodding briskly in agreement.

Nejire started up a separate list on the board, which she labeled as 'possible other team members for the U.A. team', and the first name she added to that list was Izuku's. "Okay, he'll be one of the suggestions that we'll consider for the time being." Turning back around to face the first years, Nejire continued, "Okay, now who else here wants to suggest someone, or volunteer to try and be put onto the team?"

"I'm surprise no one here considered the obvious choice of me!" Bakugo declared as he stood up, "I kick the most ass out of everyone in both classes! There's no way some two-bit extra high school's team will stand a chance if they have me to worry about!"

"Says the guy that lost to Izuku by ring out," Juzo muttered to himself under his breath, a look of sly, devilish amusement on his face as he spoke quietly.

Going ahead and adding Bakugo's name under Izuku's on the list of potential ideas anyway, Nejire remarked, "Yes, you're really tough for a first year, Bakugo, but the U.A. team shouldn't be all power. We're also going to be wanting some team members whose quirks will help serve auxiliary roles like support."

"Ooh!" Sakaki said as she raised her hand, "Then you should totally add Hitoshi to the U.A. team! He can very easily incapacitate members of the opposing team with his quirk, making them easy pickings for his teammates!"

"Some team members that are good with stealth may also be a good idea, sempais," Akuma remarked from where he sat in the classroom. The Satanist of U.A. crossed his arms over his chest as he wore a serious look on his face. "Girls like Hagakure, who's invisible twenty-four seven, and Tsuyu, who can use some form of camouflage, would fit those roles well. They'll be able to sneak up on the members of the opposing team and take them out."

Some of the students in 1-A looked over at Akuma, surprised that he would not only recommend Hagakure and Tsuyu like that, but speak as well of them as he was. Similarly, some of Akuma's own classmates in 1-B were surprised that he was as considerate of the potential of others as he was being; most surprised of all was Monoma, who scoffed rather incredulously as he stood up from where he sat in the classroom.

Calling out to Akuma, the blonde boy of 1-B said, "You cannot be serious, Akuma! Why would you recommend people from among that lot of cretins over your own classmates?"

Akuma, turning his head to look at Monoma, had a mildly annoyed, mildly angry look on his face. "…You're starting to remind me an awful lot of my previous principal's princely brat that I had to suffer under before I was expelled from Vulcan." Akuma held his right fist up, allowing the black flames of Hellfire to engulf it, billow ominously as he held it in Monoma's direction in a threatening manner. "You want to learn all about what I did the last time that I saw that ugly face of Yuki's?"

"Boys, settle down now," Tamaki said as he gestured to get the first year boys to calm down. Everyone sat back down in their seats, and Akuma willed the black flames engulfing his fist to dissipate. Once everyone had settled down, Tamaki went on with what he was going to say. "Stealth roles sound like a good idea to me, so we should add Hagakure and Tsuyu to the list of potential team members as well."

Nejire, nodding once in agreement, proceeded to add Hagakure and Tsuyu to the list, under Bakugo and Izuku. Nejire also added Shinso's name to the list, remembering what the fat cat girl had said about the brainwasher. "Hmm…we're looking at an awful lot of the first years from class 1-A…" Nejire remarked aloud. Turning around to face the first years, the sole girl among the Big Three said, "Who among class 1-B wants to try and get onto the U.A. team?"

"I can use my quirk to make barriers of solid air to block incoming attacks," Kosei said as he raised a hand, "I can help with defense if we need it."

"I can alter the size of objects," Yui said as she raised a hand, "I can shrink something really big, pick it up and throw it at the opposing team and change its size back to normal mid-throw. I can also make something normally small really big, like a lugnut or whatever."

Nejire nodded, a sign that she liked what she was hearing. After she added Kosei and Yui to the list of potential options, she turned back around and asked, "Any more ideas, folks?"

Kirishima, as he raised a hand, said while standing up from his seat, "Actually, I got someone who I want to recommend."

"Umm, I'm pretty sure that Nejire said that we aren't exactly looking for 1-A students to put on the list right now, Kirishima," Tamaki remarked.

Gently shaking his head, the hardening quirk boy said, "I wasn't going to recommend anyone from my class, Tamaki-sempai. I was going to suggest Itsuka's friend Kinoko." A lot of the students in the classroom all looked at Kirishima in surprise. This went especially so for Itsuka (who was amused by Kirishima suggesting Kinoko), and Yaoyorozu and Hagakure (both of whom seemed a bit unsettled by the idea of Kinoko fighting someone). Nodding once to show that he was serious, Kirishima said, "She's really good at taking out people at a distance, like what she did against Yaoyorozu in the tournament a while ago, as well as this one guy she helped me take down when those guys tried attacking U.A." Smirking a bit, Kirishima added, "Her attacks can't be seen normally, so guys on the opposing team won't see it coming."

"Hang on a minute there, Kirishima," Yaoyorozu said, standing up from where she stood. The wealthy girl turned to face the direction her manly hardening quirk classmate was in, a look of mildly unsettled confusion on her face. "…You're actually suggesting that girl because she can make people asphyxiate from a distance?"

Shrugging, Kirishima replied, "Being able to knock people out without getting into their danger zone sounds like a pretty useful thing to have in a fight. At least if you ask me."

Yaoyorozu, with a look of mild exasperation on her face, let out a troubled, annoyed sigh. "I'm sorry Kirishima, but I am having a lot of trouble seeing how having Komori on the team that U.A. will be using in the upcoming team battle event would be sane."

"Yeah, Momo's got a point!" Hagakure declared as she stood up, "There's no reason to suggest putting her on the U.A. Team!" The invisible girl crossed her arms over her chest, giving off an air of mild annoyance. "I bet that you're only willing to suggest her in the first place is because she's got a crush on you."

"Wait, what?" Kirishima asked, looking totally confused.

Itsuka, sighing in a resigned tone, stood up and turned to face where Kirishima was at. "You remember the incident a few days ago where the diaries of some of the girls in the hero course were taken and read over the school's intercom system, and how one girl went on in her diary about how much she was in love with you, Kirishima?" The red-haired boy, looking like he was starting to understand a bit, nodded tentatively in the affirmative.

Seeing that Kirishima remembered that part, Itsuka nodded in confirmation before she pointed to Kinoko. "Yeah, well the diary in question belongs to Kinoko." Crossing her arms over her chest while giving off an air of annoyance, the class 1-B rep continued, "It's not the way that I wanted for her feelings to get to you, but yes, Kirishima." Itsuka jerked a thumb at Kinoko while saying to the hardening quirk boy, "Kinoko here is very much smitten with you."

Kirishima, his eyes widening a bit, turned his attention to the mushroom girl of class 1-B. "That was you?" Kirishima asked, sounding surprised and mildly shocked. Kinoko was still very much embarrassed that her feelings, her heart, had gotten across to the boy she was in love with in a manner other than one of her choosing, and hearing him directly ask her if she really did love him overloaded her brain with embarrassment.

…However, the mushroom girl was able to pick up parts of Kirishima's tone that made it clear he was _not_ revolted. He sounded genuinely surprised, flattered, unbelieving that she would actually be in love with him. Kirishima sounded like he had no idea what to make of the fact that any girl at all would be interested in him romantically, but the fact that said idea was now a true fact, Kirishima sounded…relieved? Happy?

Kinoko couldn't believe it, but from where she stood, from where a lot of people would stand, it sounded like Eijiro Kirishima wouldn't actually object to the idea of being in a relationship with her. Granted, he sounded like he still had to get over some shock, some surprise, but after that, then maybe, just maybe, the mushroom girl of class 1-B might finally know what it's like to be with the boy who had stolen her heart.

Once again, Nejire clapped her hands a bit, getting everyone's attention, although it was mainly because Itsuka had started something of an arguing contest with Yaoyorozu and Hagakure. "We need to focus here, everyone!" the lone girl of the Big Three stated firmly. Turning back around to face the board, Nejire picked up the chalk she was using to write with and quickly put Kinoko on the list of potential members of the U.A. team for the team battle event.

"Now then," Nejire said after she finished writing the mushroom girl's name and turned back around to face the first years, "Are there any other suggestions that any of you want to make?"

* * *

Over at Vulcan High's stadium, Mrs. Butterbean and Lincoln sat in a special section of the seats surrounding the stadium pit that the exhibition team battle would be taking place in. They were in a special sectioned off part; the section they were in were akin to VIP seats in a sport arena, if that helps to clear things up. Sitting on Mrs. Butterbean's right was Kagura, who wore something of an amused look on her face. The principal of Vulcan High turned to face her American guests, the knowing smirk on her face telling them that she felt her students had this in the bag.

"I hope that you seriously know what you're getting into here," Kagura remarked, "Asking for one-hundred of my school's students to face just one girl from your school's team."

After translations back and forth, Lincoln said on Mrs. Butterbean's behalf, "She says that she's happy you remembered how many students from your school she asked for to face Allison."

The principal of Vulcan High was starting to feel the barest hint of annoyance, thinking that the Americans here were rather full of themselves. No matter, Kagura fully intended to put them in their place by doing as they asked. Not only that, but Kagura wanted to make it as much of a show as she could manage, so she arranged to invite some 'special guests' to come by and watch the exhibition battle of one-hundred versus one.

Kagura jerked a thumb over her shoulder, pointing out the one man and ten girls that sat behind them. "…I'm just glad that you had no issue with letting the guests that I had invited to come by watch this exhibition battle," Kagura remarked.

After translations were made, Lincoln said for Mrs. Butterbean, "She says that she's surprised that you were able to convince a group of ten actresses and their manager to come by and watch this exhibition battle."

"Well why wouldn't I have the girls of Franchouchou accept Kagura's invitation?!" the lone man in the group declared as he stood up; he was a young adult man with tidily combed brown hair, a pair of sunglasses, a white long-sleeved dress shirt under a red vest that had some squid tentacle snacks sticking out of the one pocket, a black bowtie, and a black dress jacket that he wore over his shoulders as a sort of cape. He was also wearing dark-colored pants that matched his jacket (the man's pants were held up with a simple brown belt) and a pair of brown shoes.

The man, clearly the manager of the ten girls, held a hand over his chest as he addressed Kagura and her American guests. "I suppose you two from America are owed an introduction," the man said, giving off something of an eccentric air, "I am Kotaro Tatsumi, and the girls here make up the actress troop Franchouchou, who are the stars of Japan's latest prime time hit, Saga Stories!" The man, having identified himself as Kotaro, then gestured to each of the ten girls that were in the VIP booth with him, the two principals and Lincoln, introducing them as he gestured to each one. "The girls here are Sakura, Saki, Junko, Yugiri, Lily, Ai, Tae, Sigrid, Ayumu and Hikari."

"Umm, it's nice to meet you," the actress identified as Sakura remarked, looking a bit unsure of what to say. "…Umm, I never thought that I'd get to meet someone from the States, especially after what all I've been through."

Mrs. Butterbean and Lincoln both looked surprised, although for the former her surprise came after Lincoln had translated the Japanese to English. Looking to the actresses and their manager, the white-haired boy remarked, "I never thought that I'd get to meet Japanese actresses."

Kagura was a bit amused by how the Americans were shocked that she, the principal of one of Japan's finest hero high schools, had managed to arrange for straight-up legit celebrities to come and watch the exhibition battle. Granted, the Americans seemed to not be aware that the girls of Franchouchou were, similar to the beasts that had attacked a while ago, straight up monsters, but not the same kind as the attacking monsters from a while ago.

It's true. The ten girls of Franchouchou are all zombies, humans that were raised from the dead, returned to the land of the living but not walking among the number of the living (only looking the part thanks to using Monster Glamour). Given how Americans tend to be obsessed with hunting and killing most forms of undead, zombies most of all, Kagura thought it was best that the Americans here not learn the truth about the girls that are managed by Kotaro.

But all of those thoughts were pushed to the side when Kagura and the others in the VIP booth heard some doors down in the arena pit open. Looking down, the spectators saw a large pair of plain tannish metal double doors open outward into the arena pit, and after that a mass crowd of Vulcan High students, led by Kagura's own son Yuki, started to rush in. "You all should watch this exhibition battle," the principal of Vulcan High remarked, clear amusement in her tone, "The students at my school are about to show just why Vulcan High is the closest Japanese hero high school in terms of upstaging the prestigious U.A."

…

In a somewhat crowded hallway that was inside part of Vulcan High's stadium, Yuki Hojo, accompanied by his classmate Takeshi Kanemaru, was addressing ninety-eight other quirked students of Vulcan High. "Believe it or not, everyone," the son of Vulcan's principal began, "But we're about to fight in an exhibition battle where all one-hundred of us are going to go up against just one opponent."

"Just one opponent?!" a bald boy with a very buff, muscular build exclaimed in an almost incredulous manner, "You cannot be serious!"

Nodding once in confirmation, Yuki replied, "I am indeed serious. You see, a party representing some high school from the States is visiting Japan, and they are set to have a team battle event against U.A. That battle is still a while off, but in the meantime the Americans apparently have seen fit to have an exhibition battle against us."

Takeshi nodded once to the others, a sign that their principal's son was indeed correct. "From what Yuki was able to gather from his mother, it was the Americans that requested the specific setup for this exhibition battle. They wanted one-hundred of us to fight just one of them."

"Well what are we waiting for?" the chinchilla girl asked, her head cocked to the side slightly, "Let's get in there and cream whatever poor son of a bitch was thrown to us by their school!" She pounded her right fist into her left hand, a sign that showed she was ready for a scrape.

There was a red light above the double doors that separated the one-hundred student team that represented Vulcan High from the stadium's arena, but a few seconds after the chinchilla girl had expressed her eagerness to get into the fight, the red light turned green. Yuki, leading the way, opened the double doors and ran into the arena pit, all ninety-nine of his fellow Vulcan students rushing in after him.

Once the last of the one-hundred total were in the arena, the double doors closed behind them, locking to make sure everyone in the arena would not be able to get out, at least until the battle was over. The one-hundred Vulcan High students looked around, wondering where their lone opponent was at. There was some confused muttering from some of the students, some of which were asking aloud if this was just some elaborate prank by the Americans.

…But no prank it was, as not long after the double doors had closed and locked behind the students of Vulcan, they heard a powerful, commanding female voice call out from the opposite far end of the arena that everyone was in. It was Yuki, the one leading the charge, who first saw the lone opponent that the one-hundred students at his school, himself being among that large, mighty lot, were set to face in battle. Many among Vulcan's number who actually believed that they were going to fight just one person expected a tall, beefy, muscular guy with an extremely high amount of physical strength, sort of like All Might in his prime.

Instead, their lone opponent looked to be a young adult girl. She had her yellow-blonde hair in twin ponytails that fell down over her back, with said ponytails long enough to reach halfway down her shoulder blades, with the bangs framing her face. Her outfit consisted of a sleeveless thick cloth top of dark green worn under a gold yellow sleeveless vest that would have exposed her midriff if not for the green sleeveless shirt; the vest was connected only by a golden brooch that was detailed to resemble the head of a snarling wolf, with the brooch clearing being of Nordic make.

The young adult girl wore metal shoulder pads with fur trim, a belt that was composed of metal links crafted to resemble skulls and from each skull on the belt a length of leather studded with a few metal spikes trailed down, under the belt and leather lengths was a dark fur skirt that reached her knees, a skirt that looked to have been made from a bear pelt. Under the skirt was a pair of durable cloth pants with knee guards over the knees, and the young adult girl also wore a pair of fur trimmed boots that reached halfway up her shins; the legs of her pants ended up disappearing into her boots.

The young adult girl also wore a simple dark leather headband/circlet over her forehead, and a pair of fur bracers that started at the crooks of her elbows, covered the rest of her arms going towards her hands, and also covered the lower halves of the back of her hands. In the young adult girl's right hand was, to the surprise of the one-hundred Vulcan students, a four-iron golf club. Lastly, there was also a thin, black leather rectangular case worn over her back, peeking out from behind her right shoulder and left hip.

Right after Yuki had first spotted her, the young adult girl, having likewise spotted her opposition, began yelling at them in a language that Takeshi was able to identify as Swedish, even though he didn't understand it, nor did anyone else in the team of one-hundred. The way that the young adult girl yelled at them seemed as if she was challenging them. That challenging air she gave off, plus her choice in what was clearly her hero outfit, made many of the Vulcan students in the team of one-hundred feel as if they were going to fight a Viking.

…

Up in the VIP booth in the arena's seats, Kagura was confused by the shouting of the lone girl from the Royal Woods High team. Curious, the principal of Vulcan turned to regard her two American guests. Gesturing down into the arena where the Viking-esque girl stood, Kagura asked, "Do either of you know what the hell she's saying?"

"I can go ahead and tell you than neither Mrs. Butterbean nor I speak Swedish," Lincoln said as he regarded Kagura, "So I have no idea what she is-"

"I am Allison Ace."

Lincoln, as well as everyone else in the VIP booth, turned to regard Sigrid, one of the actresses in the actress troop Franchouchou, after they had heard her speak up. "Daughter of Ashe," Sigrid continued, "Niece of Sejuani. I stand before you all here today as the Viking Hero Asgardian. To those among you who lack fear in their hearts, come forward. Let us make this contest a glorious battle that will entertain the gods of Valhalla."

"You…" Saki said as she and the other Franchouchou girls all turned to regard their fellow actress, "…Understood what she's saying?"

Sigrid, her arms crossed over her chest, simply nodded once in the affirmative. "That one down there is formally challenging her foes to battle. She aims to win glory in battle this day." Sigrid turned to regard her fellow actresses, a wry look of amusement on her face. "We would do well to watch this contest, girls. I get the feeling that we are going to be in for quite the treat." She turned back around to look down in the arena, her gaze locked on the Viking Hero.

"That one down there is a warrior."

…

The one-hundred students that made up the Vulcan High team were a mix of startled and just straight up confused by Allison shouting at them in a language that none of them had any way of understanding. All confusion fled them when their lone opponent had finished shouting at them, then immediately proceeded to run straight at them. "I have no idea what that girl is thinking, but she's nothing short of suicidal if she thinks she alone can take on all one-hundred of us!" Yuki yelled to the other ninety-nine Vulcan students.

"CHARGE!" Takeshi yelled as he, running by Yuki's side, proceeded to run right at the oncoming Allison, leading the other ninety-eight students into battle. The charging of the two sides went on as normally as one would expect in such a situation. However, at around the time that the two sides were halfway to reaching one another, the Vulcan students were all surprised when they saw what had to be Allison's quirk activate.

She became completely enshrouded in _golden lightning_.

Spotting a fairly large boulder that was one of the obstacles in the arena, Allison ran up to it, jumped up to land on it and then, with a lot more effort, jumped from the top of the boulder and seemingly flew over the oncoming horde of Vulcan High students. The Viking Hero soared over the masses until she started to descend, falling right towards the lot of them as if she were a bolt of lightning striking down from the blue.

Allison landed approximately in the middle of the large mass of Vulcan students, creating a burst of golden lightning that exploded out from her like an exploding dome that burst outwards. Many of the Vulcan students were hit by the bursting dome of golden lightning, with most of those who were hit being knocked out automatically by the Viking Hero's massive AOE attack. And that all was just from Allison using one of her attacks, Asgard Burst, right as she landed in the thick of the horde that made up her opposition.

Standing up straight from the landing position she had landed in, Allison turned to face her opponents, immediately spotting the basset hound boy. Switching her golf club to her left hand, Allison shouted, "Gungnir Bolt!" as she conjured a sphere of golden lighting above the tips of her right hand's fingers and, making a throwing motion, thrusted the power at the basset hound boy. When she did this, the golden lightning sphere thinned out, turning into a rod-like shape.

The thinned out orb, now a spear, flew right at the basset hound boy, striking him in the gut and sending him flying away with an explosive burst of power. After she had defeated the basset hound boy, Allison was distracted when the chinchilla girl tried hitting her on her left flank. The Viking Hero arched a wry eyebrow as she saw the chinchilla girl's look of total shock that the golden lightning cloak enshrouding Allison did not so much as waver. Allison took her golf club, also enshrouded in golden lightning, and struck the chinchilla girl along the side of her head, knocking her out.

Allison looked up into the sky and, as she returned her gold club to her right hand's grasp, pulled her right fist back before thrusting it up into the air, holding her cherished weapon aloft as she shouted, "Thunderer's Storm!" A massive burst of golden lightning flew from Allison's right arm and soared up into the air, before spreading out over the airspace over the arena in a manner that made many of the Vulcan students question just what kind of insanity was happening.

Before Yuki or any of his remaining team members could get a read on what was going on, lightning bolts of gold began to fall down from the skies above.

* * *

Kagura was beyond shocked as the exhibition battle was winding down. Likewise, Kotaro and the actresses of the troop Franchouchou did not expect what they had seen. Only Mrs. Butterbean and Lincoln did not looked surprised in the least, given that the show they and everyone else was watching was going just as both of them had expected, even though Lincoln objected somewhat to the very idea of the show that the American principal had challenged Kagura of Vulcan to.

Down in the arena, Yuki and Yuki alone was the last of the one-hundred students from his team that was not knocked out. The son of Vulcan's principal was clearly cowering, shaking in his shoes, as Allison, her golf club hanging casually from her right hand's grasp, strode towards him, the golden lightning enshrouding her crackling all the while. Yuki was too scared to move, too scared to even speak, much less think.

It was because of that fear on Yuki's part that some could argue what Allison did to defeat him was an act of mercy. When she got up to him even while walking, the Viking Hero switched her golf club to her left hand, curled her right hand into a fist and then, as she said, "Thunderer's Punch," she slugged the princely student of Vulcan High in the stomach with a fist cloaked in golden lightning. Yuki coughed up his bile and lunch as he fell over onto the ground, defeated and knocked out.

With the exception of Lincoln and Mrs. Butterbean, the latter of which wore a look of amusement on her face that she could not hide (not that she wanted to), everyone who had been watching the exhibition battle was beyond shocked that not only did Allison fight one-hundred opponents all at one and on her own, but that she also _won_. Looking straight up towards the skies above, Allison let loose a cry of victory, a warrior's shout.

"That…" Kagura said, beyond shocked that a lone American girl had utterly humiliated the glorious Japanese hero high school that is Vulcan High. Kagura, a look of disbelief on her face, turned to face Mrs. Butterbean who, when she sensed that someone was looking at her, turned to face the appropriate direction. "…That girl is seriously part of the team that your school is going to throw against U.A."

After translations were made, Lincoln said on the American principal's behalf, "She is. Allison will be one of the ten Royal Woods High students set to face off against whatever team that U.A. throws together to face them."

Kagura, at first, had paled when she was given said news. At first, the principal had thought the Americans foolish to the point of suicidal; after all, they had arranged for an official team battle event against U.A. Even Kagura, who saw her own Vulcan as the pinnacle of Japanese hero high schools, was forced to admit that U.A. had them beat. But as it was said, the Americans saw fit to not only challenge U.A., but also challenge Vulcan beforehand, and to a one-hundred versus one exhibition match.

But now, as she saw Asgardian shout to the heavens, shout to her gods as if she were asking if she had appeased them with the show of battle, Kagura knew why the Americans were so confident that they had a shot at achieving their goals here in Japan. Kagura, after she had come to realize all of this, was at first horrified by the mere prospect someone as powerful as that girl even existing in the first place.

But then Kagura suddenly began to _laugh_.

U.A. High School, that pompous lot who had dared to humiliate Kagura's esteemed Vulcan High, were going to get totally annihilated by the American high school's team. Those aloof cretins over at Japan's top hero high school had no idea what was coming their way, and the mere act of imagining the looks of horrified shock on the faces of U.A.'s own made Kagura laugh in such a manner that made many of the others that were also sitting in the VIP booth think she had gone mad.

After she had been able to calm herself down, Kagura turned to face Mrs. Butterbean. "I'm really sorry, but I just couldn't help but think of how U.A. is going to deal with it when they see your student down there face off against their pampered brats."

Lincoln quickly translated what the principal of Vulcan had said, and after Mrs. Butterbean gave a response, the white-haired boy translated what she said so that those who did not speak English could understand what she was saying. "Well since the future of a lot of schools all over the state of Michigan is riding on the Royal Woods High team defeating U.A. in our upcoming team battle event, I figured that it was a better to be safe rather than sorry."

"Hey, are those kids going to be alright?" Sakura asked from behind where the principals and Lincoln sat, pointing down into the arena. Lincoln did the translations, then turned around and spoke after Mrs. Butterbean gave an answer.

"Yes, even Allison knows better than to do more harm than need be. She only did enough to knock her opponents out. They should recover soon enough."

Kagura let out a sigh of relief, thankful that her students, her son Yuki most of all, were going to be okay. Still, the principal of Vulcan found herself wanting to see the upcoming team battle event between U.A. and the Americans, if only because she wanted to watch as Asgardian took to the field of battle and avenged Vulcan's humiliation at the hands of those pompous louts that had dared to besmirch the glory that was Vulcan.

The very idea of seeing U.A. suffer made Kagura smile with delight.

END, CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Author's notes;

Before you all go and get mad, keep in mind that things aren't going to go as what a lot of you are expecting. What I have planned will come as a surprise to a lot of you, do not doubt that. But yes, this arc is where a lot of what I had been building up with the Sacred Heritage quirks will finally start coming into play. The concept of those quirks was something that had been hinted at as early as chapter eight, and were first seen in action in chapter nine.

I know that some of you will have reservations about the idea, but they will play a vital role in this story. But more on that later. For now, 'A couple that will go down in legend' will continue to surprise you all with things none of you will be expecting, so don't go thinking that things here are going to happen in a certain way. In the meanwhile, the next chapter will be seeing Aizawa visit Ms. Joke over at Ketsubutsu Academy High School and stick around at the Smile Hero's offer to watch an exhibition event.


	35. Chapter 35

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter thirty-five: The exhibition battles mini-arc, part two

Shota Aizawa was surprised when Emi Fukukado, also known as the Smile Hero: Ms. Joke and one of the teachers at Ketsubutsu Academy High School, told him that the school she taught at was going to have some sort of exhibition event of some sort. Emi eagerly invited him to come and watch, saying that the event was the perfect way for Ketsubutsu to show off how well it had recovered after the damage done during the monster siege from a while ago had been repaired.

"So Joke," Aizawa began in a gruff tone as he turned to face Emi, "Care to tell me what sort of exhibition event this is?"

The Smile Hero turned to face her underground counterpart, a look of amusement on her face. "Oh, some party visiting Japan from a high school over in the United States came here on something of a tour of Japan's hero high schools." Ms. Joke turned her attention to look down into the arena where the exhibition battle was about to start. "When that Mrs. Butterbean lady mentioned that her school's team was here to have a go at some of the students from your school, the principal here decided to challenge her students, figuring that Ketsubutsu would look good if its students could beat a team set up to take out whatever team your school throws against them."

The underground hero turned to face Emi, a look of shocked surprise on his face. It was rare to see Aizawa's stoic expression ever break, especially in such a manner that made it clear he was alarmed. As such, Emi arched a curious eyebrow as she regarded the man that she was crushing on. "…Is something the matter, Aizawa?"

"A team of brats representing Ketsubutsu is about to face the team from Royal Woods High?" Aizawa asked, looking a bit surprised. Just then, before Emi could answer Aizawa's question, he turned to look down into the arena. "I can't believe that I'm actually saying this, but thanks for asking me to meet with you here."

Ms. Joke could not help but let out an excited school girl's squeal; after all, Shota Aizawa had just thanked her for asking him to meet with her. Following his gaze, Emi's own soon returned to the arena where the exhibition battle was about to take place. "The others and I at U.A. have no idea about any of the students on the Royal Woods High team, so me getting to watch this exhibition battle will prove to be an invaluable information-gathering experience."

"Ah, so that's what it is, mmm?" Emi remarked, a hint of knowing amusement in her tone, "You want to see what your brats will be facing ahead of time so you can warn them about what all to expect when their time to fight Royal Woods High comes up." Nodding once, Emi said, "I know that underground types such as you like being able to gather intel, so I figured that would give me enough pull to get you to-"

Emi stopped short when she heard something smack onto the floor of the stands that she sat in with Aizawa. Turning to regard the underground hero, Emi saw that there was a look of shocked worry on his face, the second time his normally stoic expression had been broken thus far today. Looking down, Emi saw a small, thick spiral bound notebook with a pen tucked into the rings that bound the thing together. Reaching down, Emi picked up the dropped item and tried handing it to Aizawa, but he made no movement to take it back, as he was still looking down into the arena, specifically at the lone teen girl that stood down there.

The teen girl had a sort of pale gray skin, the bangs of her hair covering one of her eyes while leaving the other one exposed, showing off its vibrant burgundy color. The rest of the girl's hair, long and black, was bound in a single braided ponytail that trailed down over her back. For her hero outfit, the lone teen girl wore a black sleeveless top that resembled the hide shirts worn by Native American people in older times, a skirt that matched the shirt, black and white stripped arm warmers that went from her wrists to halfway up her biceps, a pair of sturdy, durable-looking pair of black, fringed moccasin boots that reached about halfway up her shins, and she wore a headband with traditional Native American patterns.

A single black feather, about half a foot long, hung from the headband on the same side of the girl's head as her eye which was not obscured by her bangs. Furthermore, the girl carried with her a long staff that, from a distance, looked like a simple, unadorned number, but closer looks showed that its detailing made it clear it was of Native American make. The teen girl stood in the arena of Ketsubutsu's stadium alone, looking straight towards the far opposite end, where those she was expecting to go up against would come out of from a pair of double doors.

"You…you cannot be serious…" Aizawa said, looking down as he saw the lone teen girl. The underground hero gently shook his head a bit before he went back to looking down where that lone teen girl stood. "They…they brought her," Aizawa remarked, "Royal Woods High actually brought her. _Visionquest_ is part of the Royal Woods High team." To Emi's complete surprise, she actually heard Aizawa _gulp_ in a manner that made it clear to her that the man she was smitten with was actually _afraid_. "My worst worries have come true. My paranoia that led to me voting to hire Pixie-Bob over Gang Orca had just been _justified_."

"You're…" Ms. Joke began as she regarded Aizawa, "…Spooked by that girl that takes a lot of fashion cues from Native?"

Aizawa turned to regard Emi, and the Smile Hero was a bit rattled to see that Aizawa looked as if he was afraid for someone's life. "Emi." Aizawa's tone made it clear that he was by no means in any mood for joking around. "How many of the students from the Royal Woods High team have you seen aside from Visionquest?"

Emi strained her memory to think about Aizawa's question, but she ended up gently shaking her head. "Sorry Shota, but that girl down there is the only member of the Royal Woods High team that I've seen so far. The others from her party that I've seen are that Mrs. Butterbean person who is the principal of the school, this one girl named Lori, and some boy who was identified as Lori's elementary school-aged brother Lincoln."

"Shit," Aizawa swore under his breath, wishing that Ms. Joke had seen more of the Royal Woods High team so that he had more of a clear idea what his school's brats could expect. Still, he was more than glad to learn ahead of time that Amy Ace, also known as Visionquest, was one of the ten students that U.A.'s team was set to face in the upcoming team battle event. He was even more glad to see that he was about to get an idea of just how powerful the earth attribute Sacred Heritage quirk user was, as a large force of Ketsubutsu students rushed her, including the second years Yo, Shikkui, Itejiro and Tatami, plus their skull-masked fellow, all leading the charge.

A cloak of earthen material, enveloped in a brilliant golden aura, completely enshrouded Amy's form the instant she saw the Ketsubutsu students all charge at her.

* * *

Over at U.A. High School, the Big Three were meeting with the combined fifty students of class 1-A and 1-B over in Gym Gamma, which was completely bare at the moment. The Big Three, with Nejire calling the shots, ended up picking the team of ten U.A. students that would take part in the upcoming team battle event against the team visiting from the American high school. In addition to Todoroki, Yaoyorozu, Juzo and Setsuna, who are the four first years that had all gotten into U.A. on recommendation, the U.A. team had Izuku, Shinso, Eunice, Kinoko, Kosei and Kurama; that gave the U.A. team the ten that they were going to be needing in order to counter the ten that Royal Woods High was going to be bringing to the table.

As the Big Three worked with the ten selected students that they had picked to be the team representing U.A., the other students in the 1-A and 1-B classes watched on with varying looks of various feelings. Bakugo, notably, looked very much annoyed that he had to sit out a chance to take part in one hell of a fight while 'both fucking Deku _and_ fucking IcyHot' got to take all the action for themselves, even though the explosive teen was very clearly the hottest thing that 1-A had to offer.

"Why did even one of those 1-A cretins had to be on the team set to win glory for U.A. in the upcoming team battle?" Monoma asked from where he stood among the crowd of 1-A and 1-B students, "Surly any ten from 1-B would be-" The blonde boy of 1-B was cut off via a chop to the back of his head, courtesy of the oversized hand of Itsuka.

The class 1-B rep, with a disapproving scowl on her face, gave Monoma a serious look. "Nejire-sempai wanted there to be as much of an even mix of 1-A and 1-B students on the team," Itsuka said as he hand she struck Monoma with returned to normal size, "And I for one think that she's got the right idea."

Over where the Big Three were working with U.A.'s team of ten that would take part in the team battle event against the Royal Woods High team, Nejire clapped her hands together a few times, signaling for everyone to take a break. Mirio had his hands on his knees as he stood while slightly hunched over, trying to catch his breath; as for Tamaki, he fell over flat on his butt the moment Nejire called for a break.

And it wasn't just Suneater who fell onto his butt, either; all of the U.A. team aside from Izuku, Juzo and Todoroki all fell over onto their respective butts, breathing hard out of exhaustion, after Nejire had called for the break. "This is a bit insane," Setsuna called out from where she sat on the floor in Gym Gamma, "Don't you think, sempais?"

"We need to get you first years ready for whatever that high school visiting from the states may have to throw at you," Nejire explained, "As such, you all can expect to get more training in the days leading up to the team battle event than what you normally would have gotten over the rest of the current school-"

Nejire was cut off when the doors leading into Gym Gamma were thrown open rather loudly, making everyone turn to see Aizawa walk in, with a mildly cowed, mildly worried looking Hizashi walking in after him. The underground hero's own expression was a mix of being rattled, worried, a bit fearful, and downright infuriated. All of the students could see this, and they all couldn't help but wonder just what had happened to make Aizawa react so.

"Ah, Aizawa-sensei," Nejire greeted in a friendly tone, "Yeah, Mirio, Tamaki and I were just getting the team representing U.A. ready for the team battle event against the visiting team from that Royal Woods High place."

The underground hero arched a wry eyebrow as he looked at all of the exhausted first years. He looked at them like that for a few moments before he returned his attention to the lone girl member of the Big Three. "…So you three picked those ten?" Aizawa asked as he pointed to all of the exhausted first years.

Nejire nodded once in the affirmative, a look of assured confidence on her face. "Well since the opposing team is going to have ten, the boys and I figured that the team representing U.A. ought to have ten as well. We ended up creating a team consisting of the four recommended students, plus Izuku, Shinso and Eunice from 1-A and Komori, Kosei and Kurama from 1-B."

Aizawa looked to the exhausted first years once again before he returned his attention to Nejire, Tamaki and Mirio, the latter two walking over to join their friend. As Aizawa gave the third years a serious look, Hizashi came walking over and joined his fellow pro hero, the mildly cowed, mildly worried look never leaving the cockatiel-haired man's face. "Umm, Nejire, I'm pretty sure I speak for Aizawa here when I say the both of us think that you may want to come up with a different layout for the U.A. team."

"I even have an idea for the layout for the U.A. team in mind, if you want to hear it," Aizawa remarked, his tone dry as per usual but carrying hints that relate to his expression, which hadn't changed since he and Hizashi first walked into Gym Gamma.

Nejire, her interest piqued, replied, "Oh? What sort of team do you have in mind for U.A. in the upcoming team battle event, Aizawa-sensei?" The underground hero said nothing to the lone girl of the Big Three. Instead, Aizawa, without even looking, turned his body slightly so he could point to where all of the other students stood. What Aizawa said next surprised everyone.

"_Every_ student in both my class _and_ Sekijiro's class." Aizawa lowered his arm that he was using to point with, never taking his eyes off of the Big Three. "_In addition to_ all three of you."

Tamaki, holding his hands up in a 'hold your horses' kind of gesture, turned to face the two pro heroes, getting their attention. "Let me get this straight, senseis. You want the team that U.A. will send into the team battle event against the Royal Woods High team to consist of _all fifty-three_ of us students here in the gym?" Aizawa, the seriousness never leaving his expression, gave a single nod in the affirmative. Tamaki crossed his arms over his chest as he regarded the underground hero. "I'm sorry, but with all due respect don't you think that's overkill, considering that it will be fifty-three of us versus just ten of them? We'll outnumber them a little more than five to one."

"What Aizawa had just discovered about the Royal Woods High team tells us beyond a shadow of a doubt that _they_ are the ones using overkill here, not us," Hizashi replied, still looking a mix of nervous and rattled.

The other students, having heard what Present Mic just said, came walking over to the teachers. "Umm, senseis," Tenya began, "But what exactly is it about the Royal Woods High team that has the two of you so spooked?"

Aizawa, letting out a resigned sigh, turned to face his homeroom class's rep. "…Earlier this morning, I was at Ketsubutsu, having been invited by Ms. Joke to watch an exhibition event where the Royal Woods High team faced off against a team representing Ketsubutsu. They had no idea I was there, so I was able to gather some intel on what sort of layout the Royal Woods High team has."

"Oh, so you have an idea about the ten students on the opposing team then kero," Tsuyu remarked, doing her finger tic as per usual as she spoke.

Aizawa gently shook his head in the negative. "It's not that simple, Asui. The exhibition team battle between the Royal Woods High team and Ketsubutsu's wasn't a ten versus ten affair." The underground hero took in a breath, held it a bit, and then released it in a sigh. "The battle saw one-_hundred_ Ketsubutsu students take on just _one_ student from the Royal Woods High team." What Aizawa said next shocked every student in Gym Gamma, first and third year alike.

"Not only that, but Ketsubutsu's team _lost_."

"There's no fucking way that one-hundred students could lose a fight where all of them fought a lone person all at once!" Bakugo practically exclaimed, his eyes wide with surprise, "You'd have to be at the level of fucking _All Might_ when he was still a hero to pull off a stunt like that!"

Todoroki, from where he and the other students picked by the Big Three, walked over to speak with the senseis. "I'm going to have to agree with Bakugo on this one, senseis. I very highly doubt that even my father, who became the number one pro hero after All Might retired, could take on one-hundred opponents all at once and on his own and still come out as the victor of that engagement."

Pointing to Todoroki, Aizawa said, "You know how U.A. recently hired Mt. Lady, Ryukyu, Mirko and Pixie-Bob to the school staff, and how Pixie-Bob's hiring was decided on a vote where the others and I voted for either her or Gang Orca?" Todoroki, as well as a few other students, all nodded in the affirmative, showing that they understood what the underground hero was talking about.

"Yeah, listeners, here's the thing," Hizashi said, "The staff here and I had discussed a few points about the upcoming team battle event, which was set up before the school had to hire those extra four pro heroes. Aizawa here, who was paranoid about Royal Woods High bringing a certain someone as part of their school's team, voted for Pixie-Bob, even though he was hoping like hell that he was being paranoid for nothing, that his worrying wouldn't come to pass."

The students looked around, most of them with varying looks of worry on their respective faces. None of them said a single word for a few silent moments, until the silence was broken by Izuku, who turned to face the senseis, and spoke to his homeroom teacher.

"That girl with the earth-attribute Sacred Heritage quirk is part of the team representing Royal Woods High." Izuku looked at the shocked expressions of the two pro heroes, his own expression serious and showing that he wouldn't be having any attempt of them trying to pull the wool over his eyes. "Isn't she?"

Both Aizawa and Hizashi tensed up at Izuku's mentioning of Sacred Heritage quirks by name, with Hizashi even letting out a mildly panicked squeal. Both were fit to chew Izuku out for saying anything by name about Sacred Heritage quirks out loud, but they realized as they silently agreed with one another that, given the circumstances, there really wasn't much anyone could do about the matter.

The two teachers had all of the students in Gym Gamma gather around, with some of the exhausted students helped by those who weren't tired. Once everyone was gathered up and all standing together, Aizawa began to explain things to them. "Okay, everyone, listen up. What Hizashi and I are about to go over with you all typically is kept as classified information if we can manage it, but due to the circumstances, we have no other choice."

* * *

Aizawa and Hizashi had all fifty of the first years plus the Big Three follow them to the large classroom where the joint math exam was held. On the way there from Gym Gamma, the large party ran into Sekijiro who Aizawa, after harshly whispering something into his ear that made the Blood Hero go wide-eyed with shock, got to join the party and follow along with everyone else as they made their way to the aforementioned classroom.

Once everyone was there, the students all sat at the desks while the senseis went to the front of the classroom where the one big desk was located. Aizawa set something up with a laptop and his smartphone so that a video clip could be played on the smartboard located between two sections of chalkboard behind where the desk sat. Once things were up, Aizawa turned to face all fifty-three U.A. students in the classroom, a grim look on his face.

"The video clip I'm about to play was what I recorded while I was visiting Ketsubutsu at the invitation of Ms. Joke to watch the exhibition fight between her school's team of one-hundred and Visionquest of the Royal Woods High team," the underground hero explained, "Try not to get _too_ rattled by what you all are about to see." Without further fanfare, Aizawa clicked a button with the laptop's mouse, thus starting the video clip that was recorded on his smartphone.

…

Not a single word came from any of the fifty-three U.A. students in the classroom as they watched the video of Amy Ace, also known as the Tribal Hero: Visionquest, take on a team made up of one-hundred Ketsubutsu students all at once and on her own in the exhibition match that was held over at Ketsubutsu. The first year students were having flashbacks to their brutal training under new U.A. teacher Pixie-Bob as they continued to watch the video clip that Aizawa had been lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time to record.

…However, it soon became very clear to the U.A. students that Amy could not only do every trick that Pixie-Bob could pull off but better, she also had a few tricks that the member of the Wild, Wild Pussycats could only dream of, chief among them being that golden earth cloak that made any and every attempt to do anything at all to Amy redundant. Seeing that cloak of Amy's that enshrouded her easily block any assault thrown her way made many of the first years realize why they weren't allowed to attack Pixie-Bob at all during the aforementioned training.

Near the end of the video clip, when Yo, Shikkui, Itejiro, Tatami, their skull-masked fellow and about seven other Ketsubutsu students were left, Amy used her quirk to trigger a massive earthquake that not only shook the entire battlefield, but at random spots on said battlefield blasts of earth energy burst out from the ground, with many of those bursts striking the remaining students on the Ketsubutsu team, knocking them out. Yo, the lone student remaining on his team by the time the earthquake had finished, was knocked out when Amy simply struck him upside the head with her staff.

When the video clip showed a teacher from Ketsubutsu declare Amy as the winner of the exhibition match, Aizawa paused the video clip, given that the students in the classroom had seen enough. The underground hero turned to face all fifty-three of them, giving the collective lot of them a serious look. "Now you brats in my class and in Sekijiro's class see why we've had you all spar with Pixie-Bob the way that we've had you all do."

"That girl…" Shinso began, his voice sounding calm but clearly holding back a brewing storm as he pointed to the smartboard screen where the video clip that was playing was paused, "…Who we just watched single-handedly take on _and defeat_ one-hundred students at Ketsubutsu, is part of the Royal Woods High team that we'll be facing in the team battle event." The brainwasher lowered his arm that he was using to point at the smartboard screen with. "And the fifty-three of us here are expected to fight that monster."

"I understand your concerns, Shinso," Aizawa replied in a sympathetic tone to his foster son, "And believe you me, if I were in charge of running the hosting party for the team battle event instead of Nezu, then I would have surrendered the team battle to Royal Woods High the exact moment I saw that their team included a Sacred Heritage quirk user." Letting out a resigned sigh, the underground hero went on, "Unfortunately, Nezu's confidence in you brats is a double-edged sword in this case. Even when Hizashi and I presented him with the video clip that the two of us had just played for you all, he's insisting on going ahead with the team battle event."

Gesturing to the U.A. students, Sekijiro said, "But don't go letting this all send you kids into something of a panic. You all ought to be thankful that Aizawa here is a paranoid twat, and that his voting for hiring Pixie-Bob over Gang Orca has just been justified."

Aizawa, as well as Hizashi, nodded in agreement, with the former taking the time to speak. "Not only have we had you brats spar with someone with a quirk as close to Visionquest's as we can manage, but whereas the Ketsubutsu students went into their battle without any knowledge of who they were facing, you all know ahead of time what to expect. That advanced knowledge, plus the training you did under Pixie-Bob, will go a long way to helping you all figure out some method to potentially defeat Visionquest."

"And in regards to Aizawa here saying 'you all'," Hizashi spoke up as he stepped forward to stand between Aizawa and Sekijiro, "He was serious earlier when he said that the team that will be representing U.A. in the team battle event will consist of all fifty-three of you." Hizashi turned to face where the Big Three, who were all sitting together, were sitting in one of the rows located closest to the front of the classroom. "Nejire, I hope that you and the boys there can get all of your junior students here ready for the team battle event between U.A. and Royal Woods."

Nejire, whose normally perky expression had faltered a bit after having seen the video clip that Aizawa had recorded, stood up and gave a salute as she put on as much of a brave face as she could manage. "You can count on us, senseis!" After a few more formalities had been taken care of, the teachers didn't so much as gave the Big Three permission to take all fifty of the first years out to the P.E. Grounds for more training, so much as they _ordered_ the Big Three to do so.

Given the scope of the monster that they knew the Royal Woods High team was set to let loose on them in the upcoming team battle event, the U.A. students needed as much training and prep as they could get their hands on.

* * *

The fifty first-years all stood outside of the gymnasium located on the P.E. Grounds. Izuku remembered being on the P.E. Grounds before, back on his first day at U.A. for that test that Aizawa did, and much more recently during the siege on U.A. where those men dressed like the would-be assassins that tried to murder Uraraka stormed U.A. grounds in another attempt on the gravity girl's life.

Uraraka…simply thinking about his friend made Izuku light up a bit red in the face. After all, it was during the incident where some second year Gen Ed course girls read diaries aloud on the intercom system that the green-haired cinnamon roll learned that Uraraka was in love with him. Izuku still couldn't believe that not only had Uraraka been in love with him this whole time and most likely still is (she is, but Izuku didn't know that for sure), but that the gravity girl had also expressed jealousy towards Mitsuki Bakugo, the mother of their classmate Bakugo, since said ashy-haired woman was currently dating Izuku.

As Izuku was having a hard time processing the very idea that Uraraka could have such thoughts, he was snapped back to reality when Nejire clapped her hands together a few times to get all of the first years to focus on her, Tamaki and Mirio. "Okay, everyone, here's the deal!" Nejire said to all fifty first years, "Originally, the plan that Tamaki, Mirio and I had was to have the ten best among all of you make up a team to face the ten students representing Royal Woods High."

"But after we saw that Royal Woods High has that crazy-powerful earth manipulation quirk girl on their team, the plan that you sempais came up with has to be revised completely," Hatsume said as she raised a hand, a look of mild uncertainty mixed with mild worry on her face.

"Right you are, Hatsume," Tamaki remarked as he pointed to the eccentric inventor girl in a commending manner, "We're going to be doing as Aizawa-sensei said and work on a team that will be made up of all fifty-three of us here."

After Tamaki had finished speaking, Itsuka raised a hand, and Nejire called on her to speak. "But you were there when Aizawa-sensei played that video clip he recorded while he was over at Ketsubutsu earlier. The team for Royal Woods High has a girl capable of taking on _one-hundred_ opponents all at one and on her own and not only still win, but do so with ease." The class rep of 1-B gently shook her head, a worried expression of being lost on what to do on her face. "How are we going to be able to stand up to something like that?"

"You all have undergone that special training under Pixie-sensei for this very reason," Nejire pointed out, "You all have experience in facing someone with a potent earth manipulation quirk. We just need to iron out a few kinks and before you know it, the lot of us will go on to achieve what many would say is impossible."

"Uhh, sempais," Artemis began in a dry tone, "How exactly do you intend to prep us for a match where we are going to be fighting someone who is essentially a _god_ compared to us?" Ibara looked fit to snap at her exoskeletoned classmate, but a chop to the back of her head from Akuma made the devout Christian of class 1-B stop short before she was able to get even one pious word out. The way that the Satanist of U.A. cut off Ibara was much like how Itsuka tended to cut Monoma off whenever he tires tearing into class 1-A.

As the first years looked at the Big Three, a good number of them, as well as Tamaki, watched as Mirio walked over a ways, putting some distance between himself and the other Big Three members. The blonde, muscular young man picked up a random push broom, unscrewed the head from the handle so that only the shaft of the broom remained, twirled the broom shaft over his head as if it were a martial arts staff, then brought it back down.

After that, and to the shock of most of the girls that were present, Mirio ripped his shirt off, leaving him with nothing on to cover the upper half of his form. The original 1-A girls, remembering back to when their class had that match against their blonde-haired sempai, were all glad that Mirio's top was the _only_ bit of his clothing that he had removed; everything that he wore from the waist down stayed on. After he collected his 'staff' and took his top off, Mirio, to the bafflement of most everyone at the P.E. Grounds, actually began to _sing_;

(Mirio) _Let's get down to business, to defeat Royal Woods,_

_Did they send me pansies, when I asked for dudes?_

_You're the weakest noobs I've ever met, but you can bet before I'm through,_

_Somehow I'll…make heroes…out of you!_

_Peaceful as a garden, but on fire within,_

_When we find your balance, you are sure to win,_

_You're a useless, weak, pathetic bunch, and you haven't got a clue,_

_I will make…heroes out…all of you!_

(Kaminari) _Oh God, this is worse than death,_

(Izuku) _Hope all this training doesn't kill me,_

(Hatsume) _My babies at the shop all better be okay,_

(Tamaki) _This goof has them scared to death,_

(Kinoko) _Hope Eijiro sees my fanny,_

(Mineta) _Being expelled is better than this all day!_

(Kirishima, Ojiro, Tetsutetsu, Hiryu) _Be heroes!_

(Mirio) _You must be quick as a rushing river,_

(Kirishima, Ojiro, Tetsutetsu, Hiryu) _Be heroes!_

(Mirio) _With all the punch of a big monsoon,_

(Kirishima, Ojiro, Tetsutetsu, Hiryu) _Be heroes!_

(Mirio) _The burning force of a great wildfire,_

_Mysterious as the dark side of the moon!_

(Tokoyami, seeing that Mirio is pointing at him) "Why am I the moon?"

(Mirio) _Time is racing forward, 'till Royal Woods arrives,_

_Obey all my orders, and you might survive,_

_You need to face this raging war,_

_So don't even think you're through,_

_I will make…heroes out…all of you!_

(Kirishima, Ojiro, Tetsutetsu, Hiryu) _Be heroes!_

(Mirio) _You must be quick as a rushing river,_

(Kirishima, Ojiro, Tetsutetsu, Hiryu) _Be heroes!_

(Mirio) _With all the punch of a big monsoon,_

(Kirishima, Ojiro, Tetsutetsu, Hiryu) _Be heroes!_

(Mirio) _The burning force of a great wildfire,_

_Mysterious as the dark side of the moon!_ (Points at Tokoyami again, who merely scowls)

(Kirishima, Ojiro, Tetsutetsu, Hiryu) _Be heroes!_

(Mirio) _You must be quick as a rushing river,_

(Kirishima, Ojiro, Tetsutetsu, Hiryu) _Be heroes!_

(Mirio) _With all the punch of a big monsoon,_

(Kirishima, Ojiro, Tetsutetsu, Hiryu) _Be heroes!_

(Mirio) _The burning force of a great wildfire,_

_Mysterious as the dark side of the moon!_

(Tokoyami, seeing he's being pointed at a third time) *growls in annoyed tone while his arms are crossed over his chest*

* * *

After they had been forced to spend the remaining hours of that school day training with the Big Three while listening to the surprising talented singing voice of Mirio, all fifty of the first years were able to eventually make it back to their respective dorm buildings to rest for the evening. A good many of the 1-A students collapsed onto the floor and various seating furniture in the main area on the ground floor of Heights Alliance, with only Izuku, Bakugo, Todoroki, Kirishima, Tenya, Kaminari and Tokoyami still standing.

"That was bar none the most intense training that I can recall doing to date ever since we all first started attending U.A.!" Shoji remarked as he sat in a position on an armchair that was half sitting and half laying; the Tentacle Hero looked as if he were melting into that armchair, he was so worn out. Looking over to where the seven of his classmates who weren't totally collapsed from exhaustion all stood, the youngest student in 1-A arched an eyebrow, his curiosity having been piqued. "Hey, home come you seven aren't worn out like the rest of us?"

Looking over when he heard Shoji call out and seeing him look in their direction, the seven boys that still stood had mostly unreadable expressions that held hints of being resigned. It was Izuku who decided to speak up on behalf of himself and the other six boys that were still up. "…During the field trip our class took," Izuku began, "Before we got Shinso and the new girls added to our class, the boys here and I actually fought a Sacred Heritage quirk user."

All of the collapsed 1-A students looked at Izuku and the boys with shocked expressions, some of them even gasping. Seeing that he had everyone's attention, Izuku went on with his story. "It was this samurai-like guy who can conjure and manipulate golden fire."

"Oh, I think I remember him," Yaoyorozu said, getting a lot of her classmates to all turn to face her, "He was led into attacking the seven of you boys due to Mineta making him fly off the handle by groping his girlfriend's ass, only for Mineta to use you guys as scapegoats to distract him." Looking to the seven boys that were still up, the wealthy girl added, "If it helps any of you, he was very much remorseful over losing his temper on the seven of you."

"Yeah, I remember Aggro as well," Shoji said as he tried sitting himself up straighter on the armchair he had collapsed into, "Given that the whole mess was really Mineta's fault, as well as Aggro's aforementioned remorse over what he did and how he had arranged with the hospital to have his girlfriend's friend with the healing quirk tend to you guys while you were staying there, we were able to work out a deal with him where his actions would be granted a pardon in return for his assistance in helping with tracking down the men that tried to murder Uraraka during the field trip."

Yaoyorozu nodded once to what Shoji said, confirming his story. "He's right," Yaoyorozu said to everyone else, "That Aggro fellow was on the team with me, Shoji, Aizawa-sensei and Hizashi-sensei when we were looking to track down those would-be assassins. Although our team wasn't the one that found and caught those would-be killers, Aggro did assist in helping us acquire valuable information for investigating the group that wanted to, if not still does want to, kill Uraraka." The gravity girl, with a somber expression on her face, looked down toward the floor in the common area of Heights Alliance.

Izuku nodded once in acknowledgement to what his wealthy classmate had said. "…Yeah, the heroes are still trying to investigate that, especially since they have reason to believe it may be connected to the recent murder of Mrs. Uraraka." Looking up at all of his classmates, Izuku said, "The heroes investigating that business is all the more reason for us not to focus on that." The green-eyed boy pounded a fist into his hand as he wore a serious expression. "What we need to keep our focus on is the upcoming team battle event."

"Deku's right," Bakugo remarked while jerking a thumb at Izuku, "Our opponents are going to be bringing a juggernaut with them, so we need to prep for her as much as we can. As much as you all may not like the sound of this, we're going to have to do another round of the training that we did today tomorrow." This declaration from the explosive teen drew a chorus of moans from the exhausted 1-A students, sounding a mix of wishing that they didn't have to do so and knowing full well that they didn't exactly have much of a choice in the matter.

END, CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Author's notes;

This chapter kicks off the part where everyone is prepping as much as they can for the team battle event, which will end up playing out in a manner that no one, both the characters in the story and you the readers, will expect. Those who want to see exactly where all of this is leading will just have to wait and see what exactly happens when the teams that respectively represents both schools taking part in the team battle event finally face each other.

The big battle is still a ways off, so until then the entire cast will have some time to work some kinks out in preparation. Also, this is probably the first chapter where Mirio shows up and actually says something (albeit in the form of a parody song), so in case any of you were annoyed that he had stayed silent until now, well here you go. I actually don't have anything against Mirio, and I will admit that he's one of my more favorite characters. It's just that I like the other two members of the Big Three more; Tamaki is actually my overall favorite of the trio, even though I've probably used Nejire more thus far.


	36. Chapter 36

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter thirty-six: The exhibition battles mini-arc, part three

The teacher of Shiketsu High School sat in the VIP booth of his hero high school's stadium arena, looking down with a look of total, absolute shock on his face. Sitting in the VIP booth with him was Mrs. Butterbean, the principal of Royal Woods High, a high school located over in Royal Woods, a city that's located over in the United States. Accompanying the American principal was Lincoln Loud, a twelve-year-old boy who was brought along as a translator due to his fluency in Japanese, and an eighteen-year-old blonde girl who Mrs. Butterbean had identified as Lincoln's older sister Lori, a senior year student at Royal Woods High.

There was one other party in the VIP booth as well, a party that took Lincoln by surprise; it was the group of four mages who had previously visited Royal Woods on a quest to stop a drug ring that had reached as far as the mages' hometown of Magnolia Town, Fiore. Natsu, Gray, Erza and Gajeel, as well as the exceeds Happy and Pantherlily, were all watching the same show that the folks from Royal Woods and the Shiketsu High School teacher were all watching.

"(Well wowee,)" Erza remarked in English as she gestured down into the stadium's arena, "(That Hispanic fellow has some serious wind magic at his disposal. I'd have never guessed it.)"

Both Lincoln and his oldest sister turned around to face the mages. The lot of them were here because they were invited by Shiketsu High School, who was hoping to humiliate the American high school that was aiming to challenge U.A. before their fated team battle event could take place. The hero high school that values dignity and obligation even sent the mages guild Fairy Tail an official quest request that was basically offering to pay a group of mages to come by and watch the exhibition match. It was Natsu and his party that accepted the invitation.

Erza, who noticed that the Loud siblings were looking at her, turned to regard them. "(You all never told the boys and I while were in your town on that quest that you had fellows that could use magic, and such powerful magic at that.)"

"(My Bobby Boo-Boo Bear isn't using magic,)" Lori explained, "(He's using his quirk.)"

Lincoln nodded once in the affirmative. "(There are differences between magic usage and quirk usage, Ms. Scarlet.)"

"(Hey, I got a question,)" Gajeel said in a gruff tone, his arms crossed over his chest. Gesturing down into the arena, the Iron Dragon Slayer mage asked, "(Why the hell is he fighting one-hundred people on his own and all at once? Isn't he part of a team of ten, which still isn't enough if you ask me?)"

Lori, with a calm, mildly amused look on her face, gently shook her head. "(…There is no way that Bobby will lose. He is literally too strong for the students of this hero high school we're visiting to defeat.)" Lori turned her attention to look back down into the arena, prompting the mages and Lincoln to do the same. "(Now shut up, everyone. That's my future husband down there fighting in the exhibition battle.)"

Lori's sole brother, who sat next to her, let out a knowing hum. "(...Yeah, I want to see the extent of what my future brother-in-law can pull off.)"

…

A nameless Shiketsu High School second year student with a black, featureless head and face save for two completely white circles for eyes, was thrown back by at least a dozen feet by a great blast of wind. After that second year student was caught by a few first years, a trio of other second years consisting of Nagamasa Mora, Seiji Shishikura and Camie Utsushimi, accompanied by Shiketsu High School first year student Inasa Yoarashi, looked forward as the person who had sent the nameless second year flying back.

He was a young adult Hispanic man, no more than eighteen years of age. He wore a green long-sleeved shirt under a traditional south of the border poncho that made use of mainly reds, whites and blacks. He wore dark-colored pants with fringes on the outer sides of the legs, a pair of dark leather cowboy boots, and a dark-colored bandana over the lower half of his face, plus a fairly moderate sombrero; it was nothing elaborate. If his Mexican desperado outfit was all that this guy had, then the Shiketsu High School students facing him wouldn't worry.

But that cloak of golden winds that enshrouded him completely was another story.

"Grr…" Inasa growled in an annoyed tone. Using his own wind manipulation quirk, Whirlwind, the Shiketsu first year created a mini tornado that he used to lift himself up high above the field of battle, allowing him to fly over everyone. "You may have given me and my fellow Shiketsu High School students a great battle, and I sincerely thank you for that!" Inasa then punched the air before him, sending a spiraling blast of winds right down at his golden counterpart. "But I am the master of winds here!"

The spiraling blast of winds fired by the Shiketsu first year struck his Hispanic opponent right on, only for his efforts to be rendered meaningless by that protective cloak of golden winds. He looked up at the first year student, a boy who spoke in a language that the Hispanic man by no means have any understanding of.

...It's not like he _needed_ to understand the Japanese language right now, mind you.

The Hispanic man pulled his right fist back before punching it forward, sending a golden version of the attack that was launched at him at the person who had launched that attack. Inasa ended up getting it, knocking him down from the air as his tornado that he was using to fly had dissipated. Luckily for Inasa, Nagamasa caught him and set him down gently. Once he had regained his bearings, Inasa turned to regard his three named sempais as the Hispanic man was taking on a big group of third years.

"I'm…I'm sorry," Inasa said, sounding totally defeated, "I failed to prove myself as the master of winds."

"Relax, Inasa," Seiji replied in a sympathetic, understanding tone, "At least you can use your quirk on him, even though your attacks are all blocked." Seiji turned to face the Hispanic man, who had just finished mowing through the third years from a few moments ago. Seiji gently shook his head out of sheer disbelief as he looked to where the wielder of golden winds was now facing a trio of first years that tried charging him. "I had no idea that the Americans had a guy as strong at that monster that they brought-"

Seiji was cut off when Camie, without even looking at him, gestured to him by waving her hand up and down in very quick order. "Boys, not now." The glamour user gulped nervously as she saw her team's lone opponent raise both of his hands up into the air. "…I think that monster is about to unleash a really big move."

Just as the second year girl had predicted, the lone opponent that was facing off against the massive team that Shiketsu High School had thrown at him in this exhibition battle was whipping up a massive amount of golden winds. With a single jump, he flew back and landed on the far end of the stadium's arena while still being in the pit; this put everyone from Shiketsu High School who was still fighting right in front of him. The Hispanic man thrusted his hands forward as he unleashed one of his super moves.

"(Hurricane Santiago)."

* * *

Over at U.A. High School, the Big Three had the first years in class 1-A and 1-B all gathered in Gym Gamma, where a number of cafeteria tables had been set up. A buffet of food, all of which had been prepared by Lunch-Rush who manned the buffet, was off to the side. This set up had essentially turned Gym Gamma into something of a personal restaurant for the fifty first years and three third years.

"Okay, everyone!" Nejire called out to all of the first years as she clapped her hands together a few times to get their attention, "Due to orders from the teachers and Principal Nezu, all of our classes until after the team battle event will be suspended so as to give all of us as much time as possible to train and prep." Jerking a thumb over her shoulder to the buffet, the lone girl of the Big Three continued, "The teachers are even taking steps to give us what we need to make sure that we all stay here in our training grounds as much as possible."

Everyone looked over to the buffet manned by Lunch-Rush, who merely gave a thumbs-up when he saw everyone looking at him. Clapping her hands together once, Nejire said, "I'm sure this isn't what a lot of you would expect first thing in the morning, but the teachers and Principal Nezu find it necessary if we're to get in the training we need to help us defeat that girl with the crazy earth manipulation quirk. But you can't train on empty stomachs, so get in there and get yourself some breakfast!"

The fifty first-years got up from the tables they sat at and made their way over to Lunch-Rush's buffet. They gathered trays, formed lines, and picked what all they wanted. A few made a second trip after setting their trays down at tables, but they all had the excuse that they needed both hands to hold their trays, and they hadn't gotten anything to drink; Kurama in particular noted that he wanted to get some of the coffee, especially since there was hazelnut creamer.

After everyone had gotten what they wanted, they proceeded to eat. Over at one of the tables, Izuku sat with Todoroki, Tenya, Uraraka, Shinso and Sakaki. "Wow, I can't believe how many stops are being pulled out to get all fifty-three of us here ready just to handle one of the ten students on the team Royal Woods High is bringing with them," Uraraka remarked after she took a bite of a bagel she got. After chewing and swallowing, the gravity girl looked to Izuku, Tenya and Todoroki, a look of concern on her face. "Are…are these 'Sacred Heritage' quirks as they are called really that big of a deal?"

"You saw that video clip that dad recorded while he was at Ketsubutsu," Shinso replied, "How one girl on her own took on and defeated one-hundred opponents all at once because she has one of those quirks." The brainwasher then gave off an involuntary shudder, shaken to his very core by the mere prospect of facing off against such an opponent. "No wonder the Americans are so confident that their school's team can defeat whatever team U.A. can throw their way."

Sakaki, hoping to raise the morale of the party she sat with, spoke up by saying, "Well there's a good reason that Aizawa-sensei had us do that special sparring with Pixie-sensei, whose quirk is very similar to that of the teen girl on the Royal Woods High team. He had a hunch that things might have turned out that way, and since they did, we have a shot at actually winning." Izuku was about to say something that would have shot down what the fat cat girl said, but he stopped, gave what she said some thought.

After mulling it over a bit, the green-eyed boy thought that Sakaki had a point. Due to a mix of the underground hero being a paranoid twat and the fact that he (Aizawa) was able to get away with doing some recon, the U.A. team knew ahead of time who one of their opponents is. And with all of the training that Izuku and the other first years have done as of late, they had a reasonable chance of actually pulling off a win, even with the fact that their opponents have such an ace in the hole.

The green-haired cinnamon roll nodded once in agreement with Sakaki, happy that she had offered the group such a point. "You got a point there, Sakaki. Besides, we're U.A., the top hero high school in Japan. There's no way that-"

Izuku was cut off when he and everyone else in Gym Gamma heard the harsh, strong whooshing of winds outside. The students all looked up at the windows, a good number of which were rattling due to the force of the winds outside. The rattling of the windows, plus the whooshing of the winds, made so much noise and was so loud that it made Eunice hunch over in panic, her hands over her ears. Habuko, who sat next to the autistic girl, gently patted her shoulder to get her attention and, after getting her to relax a bit, moved her noise-canceling headphones from around her neck to over her ears.

The strong winds outside lasted for about fifteen seconds after Eunice put her headphones on, but the silence from everyone in Gym Gamma that the winds commanded still lasted well after a minute had past, up until it was broken by Artemis Norio of class 1-B. "…What in the hell was that?"

Over where Uraraka and Sakaki sat with the boys, they turned to face each other. "I didn't hear of any wind storms on the weather report this morning," Uraraka said, drawing a nod of agreement out of the former Vulcan student. Uraraka turned to face the boys, saying, "Where do you guys think that-"

The gravity girl stopped as she, along with a mildly confused Sakaki and Shinso, looked at Izuku, Todoroki and Tenya, all three of which were still looking up at the windows that were rattling with the earlier winds. All three boys had looks of resigned worry on their faces, their respective gazes mildly grim. Uraraka was about to try asking the three silent boys again what they made of the winds just now, but she was cut off before she could get a word out when Bakugo came walking over from his table with Kirishima and Kaminari; similarly, Tokoyami came walking over from the table he was at.

Once those four boys had come over, it was Tokoyami who first spoke to the guys. "I guess that those winds just now gave you all a spook as well?" the bird-headed student asked as he gestured to all of the guys aside from Shinso.

"It was creepy as hell how those winds have me scared, as if I was shaken by some sort of primal fear or whatever," Bakugo remarked with a mildly annoyed snarl, his arms cross over his chest as he spoke.

Izuku looked back up to the windows of Gym Gamma, his worried expression persisting. Just like Bakugo and the other guys there (aside from Shinso), Izuku was particularly unsettled by the winds that had just blown. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but the green-haired cinnamon roll had a feeling that not only had those winds represented an oncoming terror that nobody could even begin to predict.

* * *

Over at a somewhat shady bar whose entrance was located in a somewhat shady alleyway in the city, a number of the lieutenants of the Paranormal Liberation Front were hanging out, enjoying a few drinks. Over at one booth in the villain's pub, the trio that consisted of Dabi, Spinner and Toga all sat together, with the former talking while the latter two listened on, although the look on Toga's face made it pretty clear that she had zoned the fuck out.

"On to point nine-hundred and eighty-seven out of twelve-thousand on why my massive prick of a father is such a massive prick," Dabi remarked as he sounded like he was giving an educational lecture, "Did any of you know that he's committed no less than-"

The blue flame villain was cut off when he, as well as Spinner and Toga (who had snapped back to reality) and everyone else in the somewhat secluded villain's pub, all looked up and over to the one window in the wall that showed what was going on outside. The window was rattling something fierce, and the powerful sounds of great winds blowing outside could be heard easily.

Everyone in the villain's pub was silent during the interruption from the winds outside, and remained as such a few moments after the winds had died down; the silence ended up being broken by Toga, who remarked with a look of total confusion on her face, "What in the name of Anubis was all that about?"

"That wind sounded too powerful to be a naturally occurring phenomenon here in Japan," Spinner said with look of mildly grim apprehension on his face. The lizard man then turned to face Toga, giving her a wry look. "Also Toga, Anubis?"

Toga shrugged indifferently, saying, "So one of the ancient Egyptian gods is my patron deity. Some pro heroes out there worship friggin' Gilgamesh, you know." Spinner, and Dabi to a lesser extent, merely face palmed at their psychotic associate's bizarre tastes in worship.

* * *

All that remained of that Shiketsu High School uniform hat was a bill with a few shredded scraps of cloth attached to it. The hat, ruined beyond all hopes of repair, laid on the ground in the arena of the Shiketsu High School stadium, were all one-hundred of the school's students that took part in the one-hundred versus one fight against a lone boy from the Royal Woods High team laid in absolute defeat.

Inasa, not wearing his cherished Shiketsu High School uniform hat, was dragging himself forward with his left arm, weakly struggled to pull himself over to the ruined remains of the Shiketsu High School uniform hat. Getting within reach of the remains, the Shiketsu first year grabbed the ruined hat by its bill and pulled it closer. His eyes became watery as he looked at what remained of his hat, even though it can technically be replaced. The beating that he had received in the battle overwhelming him, Inasa passed out, still holding onto what remained of his beloved Shiketsu High School uniform hat.

Inasa was the last person in the arena to pass out, but there was still one person down there still in perfect condition to continue. Sitting on a large rock mound in approximately the center of the arena was Bobby Santiago, also known as the Duststorm Hero: Desperado. He sat with his legs dangling off the side of the rock mound, hunched forward with his elbows resting on his knees. He was resting after having fought and defeated one-hundred opponents all at once and on his own, but said rest was more for recreation rather than recuperation or anything else along those lines.

As Bobby waited to be collected by his school's party, the people who were watching up in the VIP seats were all shocked, aside from Mrs. Butterbean and the two Loud siblings. In fact, Lori was even squealing happily like an excited school girl. "(Did you all just see what my Boo-Boo Bear did just now?)" Lori exclaimed excitedly in English, "(Not only did he fight one-hundred opponents all at once and on his own, but he literally won!)"

Lincoln, unlike his oldest sister, looked down at the Hispanic young adult with a look on his face that suggested that he just now had some suspicions of his confirmed. "(...Yeah, I suspected that this would happen. Bobby is one of the main reasons why the crime rate over in Royal Woods is at an all-time national low for cities in the United States.)"

"(Okay, I know that his wind powers and attacks aren't derived from magic,)" Gray began as he and the other Fairy Tail mages looked down into the arena where Bobby was collected by a blonde fellow who was garbed very similarly to a samurai, "(But he would _still_ pass for one of the more powerful members of Fairy Tail, should he ever be inclined to try out being a member of a mage's guild. It helps that his powers can easily pass for magic.)"

The Shiketsu High School teacher that sat in the VIP seats with everyone else was trembling in fright, beyond alarmed that there was someone as strong as that Hispanic monster down there in the arena in his school's stadium. The teacher then gently shook his head in disbelief; that guy was just one of the ten members on the team that Royal Woods High was set to throw against whatever team that U.A. was going to come up with. But the Shiketsu High School teacher didn't think that all of that was necessary. The Shiketsu High School teacher firmly believed that Bobby Santiago alone would be more than enough for Royal Woods High to very easily cinch the win.

* * *

Over at U.A., the Big Three were back to training the fifty first years in preparation for the upcoming team battle event. On this occasion, the training was supervised by Aizawa and Sejikiro, both of which stood off to the side as they watched their combined fifty brats get put through the wringer by older students. It was as the two pro heroes/teachers watched all of the training that they were approached and joined by Hizashi.

"Hey, you guys hear about that big wind storm earlier this morning?" the cockatiel-haired pro hero asked when he reached his co-workers.

"I straight up heard the wind storm myself, Hizashi," Aizawa remarked dryly when he turned to face the pro hero Present Mic, "Frankly, I'd like to know what in the name of Gilgamesh could have caused winds like that."

Shrugging helplessly, Hizashi merely shook his head. "If I knew the answer to that, then you'd be the first person that I would tell, my good man."

Aizawa nodded once to acknowledge his co-worker and friend, before turning his attention back to where the Big Three were working with all of the first years. "Okay, everyone," Aizawa called out to the U.A. students, "Let's take a break. It's getting close to lunch time, and from what he told me and Sekijiro on the matter, Lunch-Rush has a few meal options at the buffet available that he's been dying to try his hand at preparing."

All of the students dropped what they were doing, with many of the first years thankful that they were able to take a break from the grueling training that their third year sempais were putting them through (okay, it was mostly Nejire being a grueling drill sergeant type; Mirio and Tamaki, while they were still firm, were a hell of a lot more lax than the sole female member of the Big Three). The combined fifty-three students proceeded to collect themselves up from where a lot of them had all collapsed onto the floor when a break was called, then walked over to the buffet that had been set up in Gym Gamma.

* * *

Izuku, Todoroki and Tenya, to the surprising bafflement of Uraraka, Shinso and Sakaki, chose not to sit with them during the lunch break, unlike what they all did during breakfast. Uraraka looked a bit troubled by how three of her main friends all chose not to sit with her, and what she feared was the reason for this made the gravity girl let off a resigned sigh of worry, drawing both Sakaki's and Shinso's attention.

"Izuku's not comfortable around me because of what happened when my journal was among those read aloud over the intercom system," Uraraka said when she was pressed on the matter of how she was feeling by Sakaki, "Since those mean second year girls from the Gen Ed course read aloud what I wrote about how I'm in love with him and that I'm jealous of Bakugo's mom because she's the one dating Izuku and not me."

"That would logically make Midoriya feel a bit unsettled, yes," Shinso remarked, understanding and seeing how Uraraka's explanation would work. He looked over to where Izuku, Todoroki and Tenya sat at one of the tables, with their current dining mates being Bakugo, Kirishima, Kaminari and Tokoyami. The brainwasher turned his attention back to Uraraka as he gave her a wry look of knowing. "…But I don't think that's Midoriya's reason for not joining the three of us for lunch like he did during breakfast."

Uraraka, as well as Sakaki, both looked at Shinso with mildly confused looks. Seeing this, Shinso pointed out to where Izuku and the others all sat together, making both girls turn around and see what the green-eyed boy and the other boys he was friends with were up to. "From what dad told me on the subject, those seven were the ones in our class that were curb stomped by a Sacred Heritage quirk user a while ago, during the field trip that took place before all of the new girls and I were placed into 1-A."

Lowering his hand he was using to gesture with, Shinso looked at both girls he sat with. "All seven of them reacted more or less the same way to the winds that blew earlier," Shinso went on, "It alarmed all of them as if it had triggered within them a primal fear. I may sound like just as much of a paranoid twat as dad when I say this, but I have the sinking feeling that those winds may have been the product of a wind-attribute Sacred Heritage quirk being used."

"But the only Sacred Heritage quirk user in Japan right now is that Native American girl on the Royal Woods High team, Hitoshi," Sakaki pointed out, the sound of her tone suggesting that she was a bit rattled by what her boyfriend had come up with. Gulping nervously, the fat cat girl went on, "And her quirk manipulates earth, not wind."

"Besides, there are other wind manipulation quirks," Uraraka pointed out to the brainwasher, "Hell, that Inasa guy that goes to Shiketsu High School has a really strong wind manipulation quirk. Those winds may have just been Inasa going a bit crazy in pumping out the power while fighting someone with his quirk, is all."

Shinso closed his eyes and gave off a gentle sigh, suggesting that he found the gravity girl's reasoning to be foolish in the naïve sense. He was about to say something, but Shinso was cut off when Aizawa, with Sekijiro and Hizashi following him, walked into the area where the tables had been set up for the students to eat at while undergoing their team battle event prep training. The underground hero clapped his hands together a few times to get everyone's attention.

"Hey everyone, there's some breaking news story going on just now," Aizawa announced, drawing surprised worries out of most of the first years, as well as Mirio and Tamaki; all of the other U.A. students simply looked as if their interest had been piqued.

Aizawa, along with Sekijiro, both gestured to Hizashi, who then proceeded to make the announcements. "About an hour ago, a large group of one-hundred Shiketsu High School students had to be admitted to various hospitals all over the city after all of them had lost an exhibition team battle to the Royal Woods High team that we're set to face." Hearing what the cockatiel-haired pro hero announced just now got a lot of the students muttering to one another in something of a panic.

Stepping forward to stand next to Hizashi, Sekijiro remarked, "We've confirmed that none of the Shiketsu High School were grievously hurt, only beaten roughly as bad as what some of you kids got during the sports festival a while ago." The Blood Hero crossed his arms over his chest, a look of suspicion on his face. "Personally, I'm guessing that Royal Woods High did what they did to Ketsubutsu's team of one-hundred students when Aizawa visited the school at Ms. Joke's invitation, and simply sicked that girl with the Sacred Heritage quirk on them."

"That being said," Aizawa called out, "Once you all finish eating lunch, its right back to training in preparation for the team battle event. We have the advantage that we know ahead of time who the Royal Woods High team has, as well as what she's capable of and you first years have had training under someone who has a quirk that is fundamentally similar. It's the best that we can do since we can't exactly back out of the team battle event." Aizawa then turned to face where the Big Three sat and asked them, "Hey, would it be okay if Sekijiro, Hizashi and I got some lunch from the buffet over there? None of us have eaten yet today."

The other two pro hero teachers nodded in agreement with Aizawa, with Sekijiro even gesturing over in the direction of the buffet. "Yeah, and from the looks of it Lunch-Rush has actually prepared some borsht. I haven't had a good bowl of borsht in ages."

"Oh, I'm certain that none of us here would mind, senseis," Tamaki replied, "Hell, I got it from Lunch-Rush that he felt you guys should have joined us for breakfast earlier." Looking over where Lunch-Rush manned the buffet, everyone could see him nod once in the affirmative while he gave a thumbs-up; apparently, he was able to hear what Tamaki said.

The three senseis, with Hizashi rubbing his hands together in eager anticipation as he talked about the tacos he was seeing at the buffet, proceeded to make their way over. Some of the first years watched as the senseis got some lunch, but Izuku, as well as the boys he was sitting with, weren't paying it too much mind. They were still worried about the winds frim earlier, with said worries compounded by what the senseis had announced about the breaking news report about the Shiketsu High School students.

Izuku, personally, couldn't help but think that Sekijiro wasn't _entirely_ correct with his theory.

END, CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Author's notes;

There's still a bit more to get through until the fated team battle event between U.A. and Royal Woods High, which as I've been saying will catch a lot of you off guard in regards to what will happen. Anyway, the next chapter will see the last exhibition team battle before the main event, as well as some set up for some of what's to come in the later parts of this arc. There's a fair bit of set up to take care of, actually.

Especially for what's in store for the girls of Seiai Academy.


	37. Chapter 37

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter thirty-seven: The exhibition battles mini-arc, part four

"Are you serious, Saiko?" a blonde girl with bowl-cut hair and glasses said as she, along with Saiko Intelli stood outside of a pair of double doors that led into the arena of their school's stadium. They were not alone, as they were accompanied by a total of ninety-eight other Seiai Academy students, all of them female; not a single student at Seiai Academy was a boy. As one can imagine, it was a good thing that Minoru Mineta was not a Seiai Academy student.

Intelli nodded once in the affirmative, her single nod giving off something of an air of smug self-confidence. "You heard me right. All one-hundred of us here are set to fight in an exhibition team battle against just _one_ member of the team visiting from the United States for the purpose of going up against U.A. High School in an official team battle event. That's what the principal told me, at least."

The girl with long white hair that covered one of her eyes looked at Intelli with a concerned look. "Umm, doesn't the fact that all one-hundred of us are going to be fighting just one lone opponent all at once set off any alarms in your head, Intelli?" The monocle-wearing smart girl turned to look at her white-haired schoolmate when she heard her speak up just now. "I mean," the white-haired girl continued as she flustered a bit under Intelli's judging look, "Shouldn't we be worried about the possibility that whoever it is we're fighting may be strong enough to face odds like what we're giving him or her and _still_ come out on top?"

The girl with pink hair in a double-knot nodded in agreement with her white-haired schoolmate. "Yeah, we may not be as likely to win this exhibition bout as what some of us here may be thinking," the pink-haired girl said, her tone sounding similarly as troubled as the white-haired girl she agreed with.

Intelli let out a mild, understanding sigh. "Girls, you all forget that, even if our lone opponent ends up pulling out some sort of surprise power, there in no way that he or she will win." Intelli tapped the side of her head with her right index finger. "Regardless of who we end up facing, I can very easily come up with the perfect strategy to take them out, even in the midst of battle." The smart girl then patted a metal, thirty-two ounce canister bottle that hung from the side of her belt that she wore around her waist as she gave all ninety-nine of her schoolmates an assured look. "And since I'm bringing a full canister of my special tea that I like to use in conjunction with my quirk, there's no way that I _won't_ be able to come up with a winning strategy."

The other Seiai Academy girls, though most of them were still nervous, all relaxed a bit, having been reassured by Intelli's speech. Speaking of the smart girl, Intelli turned around to face the double doors that led into the arena of Seiai Academy's stadium. She pushed the doors open as she said, "Alright, girls! Let's get in there and show the Americans their error in deciding to face off against Japan's top girls-only hero high school!"

All of the Seiai Academy girls let out battle cry shouts as they all ran into the arena after Intelli, spilling out into one of the far ends of the arena pit. The doors closed and locked behind them after the last of the girls got into the arena, effectively leaving them in a battlefield surrounded by high walls that basically kept anyone from getting out until things were settled.

At first, the Seiai Academy girls all looked around a bit in confusion, as none of them could see where their supposed lone opponent was. There were a few obstacles in the arena pit, mostly large rock mounds with some actually tall enough for others to stand on and have a bird's eye view of all that was below them. Some of the Seiai Academy girls figured that the opponent that they had to face was just hiding behind one of the rock mounds.

However, that theory was quickly dismissed when the girl with long light-brown hair pointed to one of the tallest and widest rock pillars in the arena pit while shouting, "There's someone on top of that rock pillar over there!" Every last girl all turned their attention to where their schoolmate was pointing, as the clouds overhead moved in the breeze so that they blocked out a lot of the sun, covering a lot of the battlefield in shadows.

It looked to be a male young adult, from what the Seiai Academy girls all saw. They all knew that this fellow had to be their lone opponent, but a lot of them, Intelli especially, were surprised when they noticed that this fellow, despite being from the United States, did not exactly _look_ like he was an American. In fact, he actually looked like he was a native of Japan, with only his platinum blonde hair color being any sign that he had mixed ancestry.

The lone young adult looked to stand around six feet tall; he had fair skin, and his long platinum blonde hair was bound in a single men's ponytail that fell down over his back, save for long bangs that framed his handsome face. He wore a long-sleeved light gray shirt under a seafoam green men's tank top, a sleeveless haori long coat (it reached his knees) over that, a pair of light gray cargo pants held up with a belt, and worn over his back was a carrying case for bokken, peeking out from behind his right shoulder and left hip. The strap for the case went from his right shoulder to left hip. Helping to sell this male young adult's connection to Japan were the shape of his eyes, which clearly denoted some degree of Asian heritage; those eyes of his, plus his haori long coat and his hairstyle to an extent, made this lone young adult look like a samurai.

Further selling the samurai air that the young adult gave off was the rest of his outfit; a headband with a metal place covering the forehead area with said metal plate had an etching detail that resembled the Japanese rising sun flag, a pair of _han kote _that covered the top of his forearms (it also had small plates that covered the back of his hands) as well as the black fingerless gloves he wore, a pair of _suneate_ that covered the fronts of his shins over his _tabi_ socks worn in a pair of _zori_ sandals, and finally a simple necklace made of (fairly big) wooden beads.

The male young adult, with his arms crossed over his chest, was silent as he looked down from where he stood on the flat surface of that tall rock pillar. It was Intelli and Intelli alone who saw that, aside from an arched eyebrow, the male young adult had a look of indifference on his face. The smart girl, even as she was in the presence of so many of her fellow Seiai Academy students, could not help but pale a bit, as she felt raw power radiate from that lone person.

"Hold on a second, everyone…" a Seiai Academy girl with short black hair and long, elf-like ears said as she and the others all looked up at their lone opponent, "…I think that I know who that guy up there is."

"Who is he, Sylvanas?" Intelli asked as she turned to face her elf-eared schoolmate.

The elf-eared girl, apparently identified as Sylvanas, gently shook her head, a look of worry mixed with creeping dread on her face. "…He looks to be one of the heroes who stopped some manner of vast chaos from being unleashed over in the Midwestern United States a while ago. He's a half-Japanese half-Swedish hero regarded as one of the leading reasons why crime rates in that part of the country are so absurdly low."

The girls that had turned to face Sylvanas as she spoke all turned back to face where their lone opponent still stood on top of that rock pillar. "And he's still technically in high school, from what I heard," the elf-eared girl went on as all of them continued to look at their lone opponent. Some of the girls, none of them knowing why, shuddered as if shaken to their very cores when Sylvanas said who exactly their opponent was.

"That guy up there is the Samurai Hero: Sengoku."

Without warning, Sengoku jumped down from where he stood, landing on the ground in the arena's pit in a crouching position with his arms out at his side as he looked down at the ground a bit. He then turned his gaze right to where the mass group of Seiai Academy students all stood, giving them a look that went well with what he said as he stood up straight.

"Well then, let's begin."

…

As all of the Seiai Academy students fought their lone opponent, the principal of Seiai Academy sat in a VIP section of the seats that surrounded the arena. Sitting with the lady principal of Seiai Academy was Mrs. Butterbean, the principal of Royal Woods High, the high school visiting Japan from the States with the intent of having their scheduled team battle event against U.A., the top hero high school of Japan. Accompanying the American principal was Lori Loud, one of her school's senior year students, and Lincoln, Lori's twelve-year-old elementary school brother who was brought along because he spoke Japanese fluently, thus was needed as a translator.

The principal of Seiai Academy and her American guests weren't the only ones in the VIP booth, either; hoping that her girls would humiliate the American school that was visiting before their fated team battle event, Seiai's principal invited a group from the village of Konohagakure (known as Konoha for short), one of the leading powers that was taking part in the currently ongoing war between multiple of the elemental shinobi nations. The visiting party consisted of Lord Naruto Uzumaki, the current Hokage of Konoha, and his three advisors; Sasuke Uchiha, Shikamaru Nara and Shino Aburame.

All of these men, highly trained and experienced shinobi one and all, were all paling a bit as they watched the fight unfold before them. "…I'm getting the weirdest sense of déjà vu here while we're watching this exhibition battle," Naruto remarked aloud, a mildly grim look on his face as his arms were crossed over his back. He turned around to look at his advisors, who all sat behind him in the VIP section of the seats around the arena of Seiai Academy's stadium. "Please tell me I'm not the only one here."

"Hey, guys from Royal Woods," Sasuke said as he turned his head slightly to face the two Loud siblings and Mrs. Butterbean. The Uchiha man pointed down into the arena pit while keeping his focus on the Americans. "Who the hell is that guy?"

"That down there is Aggro-sensei," Lincoln replied as he turned to face the shinobi, "He's been my sensei since before the elementary school that I still go to was hit in an act of terrorism a while ago." The white-haired boy turned his attention back down into the arena pit, keeping his focus on the performance his master was giving. "At first he was only tutoring me in Kendo, but soon enough he started tutoring me in Japanese as well. He's also helped me learn new styles and techniques to help me make the most of my own quirk."

The Seiai Academy principal, a notably slender red-haired woman who was just shy of qualifying as underweight, paled more and more as she saw her school's team of one-hundred students get taken out one by one by the lone member of the Royal Woods High team. As for Mrs. Butterbean, she merely nodded once in a sign of approval of Aggro's ongoing performance in the exhibition battle.

…

At one point, Aggro, who was completely enshrouded in a cloak of golden flames, jumped back to get a good distance, putting all of his opponents right in front of him. Returning a bokken he had taken out to the carrying case that he wore over his back, Aggro then held both of his hands with the palms aimed straight in front of him, thus pointed at his opponents, as he said, "Majestic Destroyer Wildfire."

A huge, bursting rush of golden fire surged forward towards the Seiai Academy students. Intelli, her eyes widening with alarm as she saw the brilliant inferno rushing towards her and her fellow teammates, yelled, "I need people to push back against that attack with ranged emitter quirks!"

About a dozen Seiai students came up and, with each of them putting in every last bit of effort that they could all muster up, fired as much as they could with their respective quirks. There was a basic electricity quirk, one that fired pastel-colored winds what had sparkles in them, one that lobbed a torrent of some manner of liquid slime, and even a somewhat potent telekinesis quirk that, although it was not as powerful as one belonging to a certain autistic girl over at U.A., was still a fairly respectable in terms of power.

All of those energy attacks formed something of a wall that met the rushing inferno of brilliant gold, the two forces colliding into one another. Even so, the golden flames easily pushed through, going on to scorch a good number of the girls, although some of them were able to quickly hide behind rock mounds that, for the most part, covered them.

"What the hell are the Americans even thinking?!" the girl with long white hair exclaimed as she sat next to Intelli while they hid behind a particularly large rock mound for cover, "Bringing with them someone of Sengoku's level?!"

"Don't worry," Intelli replied, trying to be a calming presence even though she herself was unsettled by the force that she and her fellow Seiai Academy students had to face. Reaching to her right side, Intelli said, "All I need to do is drink some of the tea that I brought with me then used my quirk to-" The smart girl stopped short when, as she felt around her right side without even looking, her right hand did not brush against the metal canister of her tea that she brought with her.

Turning her attention to her right, Intelli saw, to her shock and growing worry that her tea canister was missing. Intelli swore, choosing to swear in German partly because she liked appearing smart in front of others, but mostly due to the fact that she didn't really want her classmate that was with her to understand what she was saying, even though the long white-haired girl could tell by Intelli's reaction that they were in a lot trouble.

As Intelli and the long white-haired girl hid, they were joined by Sylvanas, the elf-eared girl. Pointing right up into the air, Sylvanas said with worry in both her tone and expression, "Girls, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there's a gigantic sphere of golden flames right above us." Looking up to where Sylvanas was pointing, both Intelli and the long white-haired girl saw a very large sphere of golden flames fall down from the sky to their two o'clock, crashing right down onto a group of ten Seiai Academy students, knocking all of them out. Knowing that they had to face their opponent, Intelli led her two classmates out from where they hid.

When they did, Intelli pointed at Aggro, a look of somewhat ecstatic glee on her face that made it clear she was trying to bluster. "Aha!" Intelli proclaimed as she pointed dramatically at Aggro, "After you've just tossed out so much power, there's no way that you should be able to stand up to those on my school's team who are left!" Aggro merely looked on with a dry, almost bored look on his face as his opponent was clearly aiming to scare him into surrendering. "If you yield now, my friends here and I will go easy on you!"

To the confusion of Intelli, Sylvanas and the girl with long white hair, Aggro casually pointed straight up into the air. "…So you have a plan for the _second_ Solar Flare, then."

Wondering just what the Samurai Hero was talking about, Intelli and her schoolmates looked up into the air. To their alarm, there was _another_ gigantic sphere of golden flames that was falling down from the sky, right at all of them. "You…" Sylvanas said somewhat quietly, in a tone of total disbelief, "…You have got to be kidding me."

There were a few other Seiai Academy students aside from Intelli, Sylvanas and the girl with long white hair in that area, but regardless of that, all of them were engulfed in that Solar Flare attack, blasting into all of them with explosions of brilliant golden flames. When the flames dissipated, everyone who was watching saw that the last seven Seiai Academy students that had remained at that point were defeated.

* * *

The principal of Seiai Academy was beyond shocked by what she, the Americans and the visiting shinobi from Konoha had just witnessed; a team of one-hundred of Seiai Academy's finest students fought a lone opponent all at once and _lost_. "…Now I see why you Americans are so confident that you will win your upcoming team battle event against U.A.," the principal of Seiai Academy remarked nervously, a nervous smile on her face, as she turned her head to look at Mrs. Butterbean, Lori and Lincoln.

After some English talking between Lincoln and Mrs. Butterbean, the white-haired boy looked to the Seiai Academy principal and said, "Mrs. Butterbean said that given how much of the future of schools all over the state of Michigan are riding on Aggro-sensei and the rest of the team for Royal Woods High winning against U.A., due to an agreement made by our state's schoolboard, she had to do all that she could to make sure the team doesn't fail."

"Well with power like what your master down there has," Shikamaru remarked aloud, getting Lincoln to turn around and look at him, "I don't see _how_ your school's team could fail." The Nara man turned to look at the others from Konoha, a look of knowing on his face. "You guys all agree with me, right?"

The others all nodded in agreement, with Shino even saying, "That fellow down there has all the makings for a proper shinobi if you ask me. His performance in the battle just now denoted a high level of skill and power, not to mention his physical attributes like speed, agility and strength puts him on par with Konoha's most elite chunnin at a minimum, as well as a good number of our jonin." Turning to face where his village's leader sat, Shino asked, "What do you think, Naruto?"

The current Hokage, his arms still crossed over his chest, continued to look down into the arena's pit, his grim gaze looking down at where Aggro was now helping up some of the defeated Seiai Academy students; he handed a metal canister to that Intelli girl who, upon looking like she recognized it, popped it open and began to greedily drink down its contents while Aggro turned around to help up that girl with the pointy, elf-like ears.

"…Seriously. Déjà vu."

* * *

Lori and Lincoln were waiting outside of the office of Seiai Academy's principal as said principal was discussing something with Mrs. Butterbean; the visiting party from Konoha had by this point already left. As the two Loud siblings waited for Lori's principal, they were approached by Aggro, still in his hero costume. There was a look of angered annoyance on the face of the Samurai Hero.

It was at this moment that the Seiai Academy principal and Mrs. Butterbean came out of the former's office; seeing the latter, Aggro walked up to her and began to air some grievances that he had. "(How come I didn't learn until _the moment_ all of my opponents entered the arena that I was chosen to fight against the team of an all-girl's school?)" Aggro demanded in English, "(Do you know how many people out there will be liable to throw unwarranted accusations against me since I, being a man, just defeated a bunch of girls?)"

Mrs. Butterbean, to her credit, seemed to understand what had made one of the stars of the team that Royal Woods High brought to face off against U.A.'s team in the upcoming team battle event so upset. "(Sorry, Aggro, but it was sort of dropped on me at the last minute as well. If I had known ahead of time that this was an all-girl's school, I would have saved either Allison or Amy to fight here, and had you face off against either Ketsubutsu High's team or Vulcan High's team in either of those battles.)"

Aggro, with a look of close-eyed exasperation of his face, crossed his arms over his chest as he inhaled through his nose before exhaling. "(…At least the girls that I spoke with understand how I felt when I saw them to apologize for any hard feelings,)" Aggro said, "(And that they accepted my apology. Oh, that one girl, Intelli, even gave me some of her tea from her canister by using the cap as a small cup, and it was really good. I even asked her for the recipe so I could brew it myself when we return to Michigan.)"

The Seiai Academy principal looked at Mrs. Butterbean, a curious look on her face. "So, what do you plan to do next?" the lady principal asked her American counterpart. Lincoln translated the Japanese into English, then when Mrs. Butterbean gave an answer, the white-haired boy turned around to face the Seiai Academy principal and translate the English into Japanese.

"Mrs. Butterbean said that all that is left now is the upcoming team battle event against U.A. She hopes that Aggro-sensei and the rest of the Royal Woods High team is able to pull off a win."

"At least U.A. is a co-ed school," Aggro muttered to himself under his breath, too quietly for anyone nearby to hear.

* * *

In a shady part looking building in the shady part of town, Giran, the info broker working for the villains that made up part of the Paranormal Liberation Front, was sitting in a casual yet stylishly decorated office-like room. He sat alone in the middle of a two-seater sofa that sat on one of the long sides of a coffee table that was between that two-seater sofa and another two-seater sofa that was occupied by Dabi (on Giran's left) and Spinner (on Giran's right); Toga stood next to the sofa occupied by her companions, further on Giran's left so as to put Dabi in the middle.

Giran, as he let out a sigh, leaned forward a bit to tap some ashes from his cigarette that he was smoking into an ash tray that sat on the coffee table between the two sofas. "…So you three went over the details in the packet on the one assignment that our mysterious benefactor wants the three of you to carry out," the info broker remarked, a look of knowing expectance on his face accompanied by a knowing smirk, "And judging by the looks on your respective faces, I can only assume that my hunch that I had earlier when I went over the details myself and saw _what_ the job in question was is right." Giran leaned back, resting his right arm over the back of the two-seater sofa he occupied by himself. "You three _don_'_t_ want to take the job."

"Don't get any of us wrong, Giran," Dabi began, gesturing to Giran with his right hand, "Spinner, Toga and I normally have no trouble with killing people. Granted, I think I speak for Spinner and Toga here when I say that the job that the three of us had to do a while ago where we killed that Uraraka woman still leaves a sour taste in our mouths, but I can at least understand the logic and reasoning behind it." The blue flame villain crossed his arms over his chest, never taking his eyes off of Giran. "It wasn't the first time in history business people tried pulling such tricks to intimidate competitors out of the scene. And I highly doubt that it'll be the last."

Spinner gestured to a small stack of paper sheets that were stapled together; said packet rested on the surface of the coffee table, near the ash tray that Giran was using. "But this job here would have the three of us kill a _ten_-_year_-_old kid_. Not only that, but it's written in the details for the job that the kid's only offence is something that can be reasonably argued isn't even his fault."

Toga, with a mildly confused look on her face, turned to face Dabi and Spinner. "Wait a minute, I'm confused here," the psychotic school girl began, "I didn't read the copy of the job detail report, so all I know about it is what you guys said about us having to kill an innocent kid if we take it." Crossing her arms over her chest, Toga asked, "Why exactly does that benefactor guy want that kid dead?"

"Read it," Dabi said as he picked up the report for the job, which laid on the coffee table next to Giran's ash tray, then handed it to Toga. She skimmed through it a bit, and as she did so her expression soured more and more. After she was done, the psychotic school girl turned to face where Giran sat.

"What the fuck?" Toga all but exclaimed in a disgusted tone, "So the kid has a panicked meltdown in public right as mystery benefactor guy comes out of a fancy restaurant with his wife, the wife sees and hears said meltdown and it sours her mood, which meant that she didn't offer up later that night?" Lowering her arm that held the report, Toga said, "The mysterious benefactor wants us to kill a kid because said kid kept him from having sex that night?"

Giran nodded once in confirmation, before he looked at all three of the villains with a knowing grin. "So I _was_ right that you three don't want to take the job." Giran took out a phone from his purple suit top, dialed up a number, and held the phone up to the side of his head, waiting for the other end to pick up. "…Ah, glad I was able to reach you, my good man," the info broker began in a casual, friendly tone, "Yes, well this is concerning the job you wanted some of my associates to carry out, and as it turns out, they are occupied with other work so they aren't able to do it."

Dabi, Spinner and Toga watched as Giran lied through his teeth as he spoke with the mysterious benefactor on the phone. "…Yes, yes, I know I said that I thought that they were available, but their other work had popped up between when I last spoke with you and just now. …Yes, yes, I know that with them occupied that there's no one available to do the job period, and I'm very sorry that my group is unable to carry out the hit you requested. Hopefully at least one of my associates will be freed up later. …Yes, I'll talk to you later. Good-bye." Giran ended the call before he slipped his phone back into his purple suit top.

"I can't honestly blame you three for not wanting to carry out that hit," the info broker remarked as he gestured to Dabi, Spinner and Toga, "I looked into the incident mentioned in the hit report, and it turns out the kid's panicked meltdown was caused by a bunch of pro heroes rushing by on their way over to Seiai Academy High School for some odd reason, and the noise that said rush generated is what had caused the poor boy to have his panicked meltdown."

"I can't believe that you willingly lied through your teeth to our mysterious benefactor," Dabi remarked, a mildly amused grin on his face.

Gently shaking his head, Giran said, "Oh no, that was one of his men who, unlike the benefactor himself, we've actually seen. Don't worry, he'll relay the message to the big boss himself." Giving the three villains a serious look, Giran went on, "Don't worry, you three. I got your back on this one." Dabi and the others nodded in thanks before Dabi and Spinner got up and, with Toga following them, left the office they were in with the info broker.

…

"I still can't believe our mysterious benefactor is so petty that he'd order a hit out on a kid simply because said kid having a meltdown in public ultimately led to our benefactor not getting to have sex that night," Dabi spat in a disgusted tone as he, along with Spinner and Toga, were all walking in the alleyway that led to the building that they were in.

Spinner, with his arms crossed over his chest, nodded in agreement. "It's bad enough that we had to carry out a hit on an innocent woman whose only offence was that she was part owner of a Construction Company that suddenly got a boost in business, thus breaking the monopoly that our benefactor had on those businesses in the city." The lizard man gently shook his head as he lowered his arms back down. "But to kill a kid? And for the reason listed? Nuh-uhh, no way, that don't sound kosher to me, not to mention how it goes against the ideals of Stain."

Toga looked like she was about to say something as she and the boys began to turn a corner, but she was stopped before she could get even one word out when Dabi, who spotted something, jumped back behind the corner while pulling her and Spinner with him. The psychotic girl was going to complain, but Dabi hushed her. When all of them there quiet, the blue flame villain pointed to around the corner, making his companions silently peek from the corner with him to see what was going on.

Toga and Spinner both saw why Dabi pulled them back into the alleyway; standing out in a more public street were a very familiar group consisting of three older shinobi and one large dog who Dabi, Spinner and Toga had the rather unfortunate luck to bump into during a previous job over in the United States. There was no way that the trio of villains were going to forget that pink-haired man, that blonde-haired man, that brown-haired woman and said woman's dog, who wore an eyepatch and was missing an ear.

"Yo Inoichi, my good man," the pink-haired man said to his blonde companion, "How come your son wouldn't let us come along to watch that exhibition match at the school that he and the others visited earlier today?"

"Maybe mah boi wanted us to keep an eye on the rooms we have reserved at the hotel we're staying at while we're here on tour, Harold," the blonde man, apparently called Inoichi, said to his pink-haired friend, apparently called Harold.

As the three seniors talked, Dabi and his friends watched them from the alleyway, hidden so that they wouldn't be spotted. "Oh hell the fuck no," Dabi swore under his breath, his eyes a bit wide with alarm, "What the fuck are those crazy older shinobi from one of the elemental nations doing here?! They're way far from home over in the shinobi territories."

"I say we back up further into the alleyway," Spinner began, "And wait for those guys to leave before we try to make a break for it." Both Dabi and Toga nodded in agreement before they proceeded to sneak back into the alleyway with their lizard man friend.

END, CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Author's notes;

In case any of you are wondering why so many characters from other realms have shown up over the last few chapters, it's because the stage is being set for something big, which was partly hinted at over the last two chapters; you will get more of a hint of what's to come in the next chapter. But yeah, this is the last chapter that will feature an exhibition match before the upcoming team battle event between the forces of U.A. and Royal Woods High. There will be a few points that are covered in the first portion of the next chapter, then things for the rest of this arc as a whole will be kicked off.


	38. Chapter 38

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter thirty-eight: An unexpected interruption

Izuku was exhausted as he, along with most of the rest of his class, returned to the Heights Alliance dorm building for the evening. They had to get as much rest as possible, given that they, along with all of 1-B and the Big Three, had to face off against the team of ten that the party from Royal Woods High, a high school visiting from the United States, brought with them to take part in the team battle event between the two schools.

When news was first given to all of the U.A. students that were put onto the team that all fifty-three of them were slated to fight the team of ten that the opposing school was bringing along, a good number of them all questioned the apparent overkill. But when Aizawa showed them a video clip he recorded on his smartphone while he was visiting Ketsubutsu, they all understood the need to have as many numbers on the U.A. team as possible. Izuku most of all, given what all he learned on the subject in question.

The team representing Royal Woods High has a Sacred Heritage quirk user.

With what Izuku had learned when he first started looking into the subject of those quirks, as well as what he and some of his classmates had experienced firsthand because of Mineta during a recent field trip that their class took to the States, the green-eyed boy had every reason to believe that, even with all of the training that he and the other first years had done as of late both under the Big Three and Pixie-Bob, he and the rest of the U.A. team were _still_ going into a battle that they had no realistic shot of winning.

As Izuku sat at a dining table on the ground floor of Heights Alliance, accompanied by Tenya and Todoroki, the three of them were approached by Uraraka and Tsuyu, the latter of which was talking on her smartphone to someone. "…Yes, mom, I understand," the frog girl said into the phone as she was apparently talking to her mother, "I'll let you and the rest of the family know when the team battle event my school's taking part in is over. Also, I'm glad to hear Samidare is doing much better now kero."

The frog girl said good-bye before ending the call and putting her phone back into her pocket. After she did that, Tsuyu and Uraraka both joined the three boys that were sitting at the table; the way that both girls sat down made it clear that Izuku, Todoroki and Tenya weren't the only ones that were thoroughly exhausted. The two girls looked at their friends a bit nervously before the silence was broken by Uraraka. "So, boys, the big team battle event is tomorrow." Looking a bit nervous, the gravity girl asked, "You boys think that the fifty-three of us can do it?"

"So long as that girl with the Sacred Heritage quirk is the only person that we have to worry about," Tenya began to remark, "I'm starting to think that we may actually have a shot at scoring a win here." Looking around at the others who sat with him, the class 1-A rep added, "Provided, of course, that nothing unexpected pops up."

"Hey Tsuyu, quick question," Todoroki began, "I'm just curious, but what were you talking to your mother about just now?"

Tsuyu turned her attention to the dual natured-quirk boy, a look of mildly piqued surprise on her face. "Oh, I was just telling her about how I was going to take part in the team battle event tomorrow, and that she reassured me when I had expressed worry about our team's prospects of actually winning kero."

The others sitting at the table with the frog girl all nodded in understanding. They themselves all had their doubts about actually winning tomorrow, even though everyone that they knew had taken the time to reassure them. Even Inko, when Izuku called her and told her how he was very worried, told Izuku that he had it in him to do things that were nothing short of fantastic, and that she believed in her 'little cinnamon roll' as she called him during the call in question.

Izuku could only hope that, by this time tomorrow, things wouldn't have gotten _too_ bad.

* * *

Aizawa, accompanied by his two foster kids Shinso and Eri, plus Shinso's girlfriend Sakaki, walked into a traditional ramen shop, one that was very much similar to another ramen shop that is located in a certain village somewhere. "I'm surprised that you allowed Sakaki to come along with us, dad," Shinso remarked as he and the others entered the restaurant, a hint of surprise in his otherwise stoic tone.

"Well she's been a good influence on you," the underground hero remarked, a hint of sly amusement in his tone, "And given how much of an impact she's had as of late, I figured that it wouldn't hurt to let her come along." Looking ahead into the ramen shop, Aizawa added in his usual gruff manner, "It also helps that you offered to pay for her meal so that I won't have to."

"Hitoshi," Eri began in a curious tone as she looked up at the brainwasher while pointing to Sakaki, "Why do you like this girl so much?"

Shinso, caught off guard by the surprise question from the little horned girl (Aizawa and Sakaki were likewise surprised as well), sputtered a bit before he gave an answer. "Well Eri, I happen to find Sakaki really cute, what with her ears and her tail and all. She's also really pretty overall." The next question that Eri, who didn't know any better because she's a little kid mind you, decided to ask made the two teens as well as Aizawa take pause.

"Do you think she's pretty because she's really squishy?"

"Uhh…" Shinso said, at a bit of a loss over what to say, given what he knew Eri was trying to ask. He wasn't the only one who looked to be at a loss either; both Aizawa and Sakaki, the latter blushing somewhat out of embarrassment, both looked like they did not know exactly what to say at the moment, although Aizawa looked like he knew that he had to go over something with Eri when he and Shinso got her home. "…That's not _exactly_ why I find Sakaki pretty, Eri," Shinso said, "But it's by no means something that I object to."

Eri looked like she understood what her foster brother said, and Sakaki was still blushing a bit, although now she looked a bit thankful that her boyfriend said that he didn't mind the fact that she was on the heavier side of things. Aizawa nodded once in approval, glad to see his foster son did not discriminate on appearance. Eri, who still looked like she was thinking about something that was on her mind, asked another question that caught the teens and Aizawa by surprise.

"Would I be pretty if I was really squishy?"

"There's no need for that, Eri," Aizawa said right away, intending to nip that problem in the bud as soon as possible. The party of four continued to go on into the ramen shop, stepping into the warm, inviting atmosphere of the traditionally Japanese dining place. It was when Aizawa and the others entered the ramen shop, the door closing behind them, that the underground hero saw someone whose presence in Japan caught him by surprise.

Looking over to the dining counter, Aizawa spotted Aggro Ace, sitting next to the white-haired boy who Aizawa recognized as Aggro's protégé, Lincoln Loud. The two of them were clearly grabbing a bit of dinner out, speaking to one another in English with the clear intent of keeping their conversation secret. "…What the hell are they doing here in Japan?" Aizawa said aloud but more to himself than anything else as he walked over to them, the teens and Eri following him.

…

"(I still can't believe that we're actually here in Japan, Aggro-sensei,)" Lincoln remarked in English as he ate some of his bowl of true Japanese ramen, not any of that cheap instant stuff that you can get in the store.

The Samurai Hero nodded once in agreement with his protégé. "(I'm still a bit surprised by it myself, Lincoln-kun,)" Aggro began, "(After all, Japan is the land where my late father was born and raised, the land that I claim half of my heritage from. When Principal Butterbean and Carol had me meet them over in Butterbean's office and told me about the trip to Japan, and that they wanted me to be part of the party that went, well…)" Aggro chuckled a bit before he remarked, "(…How could I say no?)"

"(I'm just wondering this, but why did you ask for the condition that I be brought along on the trip as well?)" the white-haired boy asked.

Aggro closed his eyes, breathed in and out through his nose. "(…Well you're fluent in Japanese, so you could serve as a translator.)" Turning to face his protégé fully, Aggro said, "(But my main reason for asking you to come along is because this trip, due to its nature, will be an invaluable learning experience for you. Not only will it help in sharpening your language skills, but all that you can gleam from watching the battles between quirked persons will serve you well in your own work as a-")

"Sengoku," a voice familiar to Aggro called out in Japanese, cutting Aggro off and making both him and Lincoln turn to see Aizawa standing there, accompanied by two teens and a little girl, none of which either of the two guys from the States recognized. It was clear that it was Aizawa who had spoken up.

"Ah, you're that teacher fellow from the field trip that visited Royal Woods a while ago," Aggro said as he changed what language he spoke in. A look of guilty remorse entered the Samurai Hero's expression as he said, "I hope that those seven boys that I roughed up are doing better. I still feel bad over how I lost my temper on them because they held me back from pursuing that pervert who fondled Leni-chan's rear end."

Aizawa held up a hand in a gesture meant to cut off argument, giving off an air that showed he understood where Aggro was coming from. "Well with all that you did to atone for your actions, as well as how the boys are all okay, we all decided to just let it be water under the bridge." Lowering his hand, Aizawa added, "I also had Mineta punished for his actions during the field trip, although circumstances made it so that I couldn't carry out my original idea for how I had wanted to punish him."

Aggro, as well as Lincoln, nodded in understanding. After the nodding, Aggro gestured to Shinso, Sakaki and Eri. "…Are these other students of yours, Aizawa?"

"Shinso and Sakaki are, yes," the underground hero replied as he gestured to the teens in the appropriate order. Pointing to Shinso and Eri in that order next, Aizawa continued, "Also, Shinso as well as Eri here are my foster kids."

Lincoln nodded to Aizawa's party as he said, "It's great to meet you all."

Eri, with an excited look on her face, looked up at the two guys from America. "So you two from the States know papa from before? That's awesome! Oh, why are you here in Japan?"

"My guess," Shinso began as he crossed his arms over his chest, "Is that they're here as part of the party from Royal Woods. Both of them clearly speak Japanese, so they're probably here to serve as translators for their English-only party members."

"Yeah, Aggro-sensei and I are the only ones in our party who speak Japanese," Lincoln confirmed after he finished his mouthful of ramen.

Aizawa nodded once in understanding. "Well the students on the U.A. team are a bit nervous about their match against your school's team tomorrow. But Principal Nezu has every confidence that the brats on U.A.'s team will give the team that your school brought here a run for their money." Giving off the slightest bit of a smirk, the underground hero added, "I hope that your school's team is prepared for some serious competition."

Aggro, with a hint of knowing amusement on his face, merely replied, "I'm looking forward to the show." Lincoln said nothing, although he did nod once in a manner to show that he agreed fully with his master.

The underground hero prepared to lead his party away to a booth so they could all sit down and finally order dinner. After the party of four had sat down at a booth, Lincoln turned to face Aggro and spoke to him in English as a waitress came up to Aizawa's booth. "(I saw Mr. Aizawa over at Ketsubutsu the day that your sister Amy had her exhibition battle there, Aggro-sensei.)"

"(Oh?)" Aggro replied, the knowing hint of amusement thick in his tone, "(You think that the good people at U.A. are trying to engage in a bit of espionage to learn of the Royal Woods High team's roster ahead of time?)"

"(I don't think so,)" the white-haired boy said, "(Given that I got it that Mr. Aizawa was there because that Ms. Joke lady had invited him. The look on his face that I saw when I overheard it that he was going to watch the exhibition match told me that he didn't expect to be presented with an opportunity to gleam a bit of info on your school's team.)"

Aggro turned forward to face where his meal sat on the counter in the ramen shop, his eyes closed in a calm expression as he considered his protégé's words. "(…Do you know if Aizawa learned of anyone else on the Royal Woods High team aside from Amy, Lincoln-kun?)"

Lincoln gently shook his head in the negative. "(From what I was able to pick up on, Amy is the only person on your school's team that Mr. Aizawa is aware of, Aggro-sensei.)" The white-haired boy snuck a quick glance in the direction of Aizawa's table, where Aizawa and Shinso sat opposite of Sakaki and Eri. All four of them were talking to one another, distracted. Lincoln turned his attention back to Aggro. "(As far as I know, he has no idea about the rest of the roster for Royal Woods High's team.)"

"(That's good,)" Aggro replied simply as he proceeded to eat the rest of his meal. Lincoln, taking the cue, turned his attention to his ramen and proceeded to finish it off. The two guys from the States ate in silence for the rest of their time in the ramen shop. When they were both done, Aggro paid for the meal (he had some Japanese currency with him) and, after he and Lincoln had both thanked the ramen shop's cook for the meal, they took their leave, making a beeline for the hotel that they and the rest of the Royal Woods party was staying at while they were in Japan.

* * *

The following morning over at the dorms at U.A., Izuku and the others in 1-A were all awoken at the crack of dawn by someone banging a metal ladle against the bottom of a frying pan. "I ain't get no sleep 'cause of y'all," Mina's voice sang loudly outside of Izuku's dorm room, "Now you all get no sleep 'cause of me!"

Izuku looked to the All Might-themed alarm clock on his nightstand, saw the time, and grumbled in an annoyed tone as he walked to his dorm room's door and opened it, walking out to see Mina dance her way down the hall as Tokoyami, Aoyama and Mineta were all awoken in a similar manner. Once she saw that the boys had all awoken, the pink-skinned girl, who was wearing her hero outfit, had stopped whatever it was that she was doing.

"Mina, would you care to explain why you decided to wake us all up at so ungodly an hour," Tokoyami grumbled in an annoyed tone, "And in such a manner, to boot?" Dark Shadow popped out, rested on Tokoyami's left shoulder, and rubbed its eyes in a manner that people who just woke up and are still tired tend to do.

Mina casually dropped the items she banged together on the floor as she said to the boys, "We all have to meet up with the Big Three down in the main area of our dorm building. The guys over in 1-B are being brought over as well." Mina said that she could give the boys five minutes to suit up in their hero outfits before she would return and do what she did to wake them up in the first place. Getting the cue, Izuku and the others in his hall proceeded to go about getting ready for the day.

None of them could predict what the day had in store for them.

* * *

"Alright, gang," Nejire said as she, along with Mirio and Tamaki, stood in front of the combined fifty students of 1-A and 1-B, "Today is the day that the lot of us all take part in the official team battle event against the visiting team from Royal Woods High."

"Our main objective in the team battle event, naturally, is to come up with some method of taking out that girl with the crazy earth manipulation quirk," Tamaki said to the first years, "But that does not mean we should ignore the rest of her team. That being said, we need to divert some resources to taking out the other nine members of the Royal Woods High team while the rest of us all tackle that crazy strong monster."

Tapping his right fist into the palm of his left hand, Mirio remarked, "The others here and I figure that nine of us will focus on the other nine while the remaining forty-four of us all do whatever they can think of to try and take that girl out." The blonde boy of the Big Three crossed his arms over his chest as he said, "Since you first years are the only ones who have experience in facing someone with a massive earth manipulation quirk, me, Tamaki and Nejire will be among the nine on our team to focus on the other nine members of the opposing team."

The first years all nodded and murmured amongst one another in agreement with what their sempai had just said. Since six of their number would have to be diverted temporarily to help the Big Three deal with Amy's teammates, the first years all talked over what to do to accomplish that goal before they all resumed trying to defeat Amy herself, as well as who among them to send with the Big Three to help them with their task.

"I think that the best course of action is to take out the other nine as quickly as possible," Yaoyorozu said, "And since we don't exactly have the luxury of knowing who the other nine members of the Royal Woods High team are, our best bet at this point is to just throw as much power at them as quickly as possible, giving them no time to gather themselves and form a plan to fight back."

"Ooh, Bakugo has lots of power," Pony remarked as she raised a hand, "He can take out one of that earth quirk girl's teammates in next to flat!" The explosive teen, hearing his girlfriend speak highly of his power in such a manner, could not help but let off an amused smirk.

Yaoyorozu nodded once in agreement as she pointed at the half-American girl in a commending manner. Looking around at the other first years while the Big Three were talking to each other, Yaoyorozu asked, "Does anyone else have any ideas on who to volunteer to join the Big Three's temporary team?"

Akuma raised a hand as he said, "If it's dishing out as much power as possible and as quickly as possible that you want, then let me take a crack at it." The Satanist of U.A. gave off a bit of a self-amused smirk as he added, "I'm not much of one to brag, but I _do_ have quite a bit of firepower at my disposal."

Ibara, unamused by her satanic classmate's acting, crossed her arms over her chest, turned her head to look away, and scowled. "…The devil does have a point." Turning her attention to the wealthy girl of 1-A, Ibara remarked, "You may also want to consider your classmate Todoroki, as he can use both fire and ice powers. And he has displayed quite a bit of power in the past, so he should be able to back up the Big Three, Bakugo and Akuma."

"That sounds fair," Reiko said, nodding in agreement with her devout Christian classmate. After a bit more conversing amongst themselves, the fifty-three U.A. students ended up picking Artemis, Kaminari and Eunice to be the other three members who will join the Big Three, Akuma, Bakugo and Todoroki as the group of nine to focus on taking out the other nine students on the Royal Woods High team. With the special squad picked to deal with Amy's teammates, the U.A. students took care of waking themselves up a bit more before the team battle event.

…

As the students went about trying to wake up more, which mostly involved getting breakfast for most of them, Bakugo was at the one island table counter in the kitchen area, eating breakfast with Kirishima, Kaminari and Sero, although all that the explosive teen was really having was a mug of coffee. As the four boys talked over the morning meal, they heard a girl call out to them. Looking up, Bakugo and the boys of his squad saw the trio of Itsuka, Pony and Kinoko come walking over to talk to them.

"Hey, Bakugo," Pony began, "Itsuka and I wanted to speak with your red-haired friend about something."

A look of piqued curiosity appeared on Bakugo's face when he heard his girlfriend's request. "What the hell did Kirishima do?"

Itsuka, as she gently shook her head, let out a mild sigh as she said, "It's actually more along the lines of something that Kirishima did _not_ do." Turning her attention to the hardening quirk boy, the class 1-B rep gave him a serious look. "Even though what those stupid Gen Ed course second year girls did a short while ago was not how she wanted you to learn about it, it does not change the fact that Kinoko is indeed in love with you, and you have yet to tell her anything in response." Itsuka crossed her arms over her chest while keeping her gaze on Kirishima, all the while Kinoko looked to the floor in an embarrassed manner. "Kirishima, why haven't you given Kinoko an answer yet?"

The red-haired teen had a mildly troubled look on his face, a sign that he was somewhat embarrassed. "…To be honest, the idea of a girl actually liking me is something completely new to me," Kirishima began, getting surprised looks out of Itsuka, Pony and (especially) Kinoko. "I didn't really think that it would have actually happen to me period," Kirishima went on, "But then it suddenly did. Don't get me wrong, I don't object to a girl liking me, it's just that I was by no means ever expecting it to happen. So when it actually did, it caught me by surprise so much that I'm still trying to process it."

"Yeah, our bud here hasn't exactly been the luckiest dude in the world when it comes to finding someone who would like him," Kaminari explained, "So when it got out that your mushroom friend here has the hots for him, it took him by surprise."

Itsuka, as well as Pony and Kinoko to an extent, seemed to understand how Kirishima was feeling on the matter. Gesturing to the boys, Itsuka said, "Well, do you at least know if you'd agree to be with her, Kirishima?"

"With all due respect, please don't force an answer out of him right now." The three 1-B girls all turned to look at Sero when he had spoken up. "We have all just woke up, and we're all trying to prep ourselves for some big ass battle that's running a fair shot of steamrolling all of us anyway. Kirishima's got enough on his plate as it is."

The three 1-B girls, Kinoko especially, looked a bit disappointed that Kirishima wasn't going to give an answer to the subject of if he'd give dating Kinoko a shot or not. However, something that the hardening quirk boy said next did a really great job at lifting their spirits, getting the three of them, Kinoko especially, to all turn their attention to him.

"But like I said, I don't object to the idea." Standing up from where he sat at the table, Kirishima said, "I don't object, but since this is still something new to me, I still need a bit of time to process it." He turned his attention to class 1-B's mushroom girl, gave her a serious look of consideration. "Can you wait until after all of us have taken care of the team battle event today, Kinoko?" Kirishima asked, "I'll have an answer for you then."

Kinoko's heart skipped a beat since her crush just told her that he'll have an answer for her soon. The main reason why the mushroom girl was so excited was judging by both the tone and words of the crimson spiked-haired boy in class 1-A, he's liable to give her an answer that would send her over the moon with happiness. Somewhat sheepishly since she _was_ talking to Kirishima after all, Kinoko nodded briskly in the affirmative.

Clapping his hands together, Kaminari said, "Ooh, this reminds me." With the boys and the 1-B girls all looking at him, Kaminari went on, "I think that I may try to give things with Kyoka a shot again." Bakugo, Kirishima and Sero congratulated their electric quirk friend, glad to see that he had recovered enough from the last time he tried to start something special with the rock music lover to give things in that field another go. Kaminari, crossing his arms over his chest as he wore a serious look of annoyance, added, "Provided, of course, that Mineta is nowhere near us when I try asking Kyoka if she'd be up to it."

"The girls and I can tie Mineta up and throw him into a closet somewhere, if that helps," Itsuka said as she gestured to herself, Pony and Kinoko, both of which nodded in agreement. When Pony said that she would kick Mineta in his 'family heirlooms' if he tried anything, the others laughed in amusement. Bakugo especially, as he found the way that his girlfriend had just put kicking the infamous pervert in his balls to be a fresh and hilarious twist.

The 1-B girls, having gotten what they came for and then some, took their leave, allowing Bakugo and the boys of his squad to finish their breakfast in peace. Sure, the daunting team battle event still loomed ominously over the heads of everyone in class 1-A, class 1-B and the Big Three, especially since Royal Woods High was bringing a Sacred Heritage quirk user along as a part of their roster.

…But hearing what the boys all said did a fair bit to lift the spirits of the 1-B girls. Kinoko felt especially as if her spirit was soaring, given that not only was her crush going to give her an answer, but all the signs she observed told her that it was going to be the answer that she wanted, the answer that she dreamed of. If what Kinoko was believing was true, then it wouldn't even matter to her if the (very) likely event of U.A. losing the team battle event to Royal Woods High later today ends up coming to pass.

She would be getting a 'yes' from the crimson spiked-haired boy.

* * *

Later, after everyone for the U.A. team had woken up sufficiently, they all made their way to the Sports Festival Stadium. From what Nejire said to everyone as they all made their way over, the stage that was set up for everyone to fight on during the Sports Festival itself had been cleared away, leaving nothing but a big, wide open space. The entirety of the arena would also be sealed off, so as to prevent excess from fired quirk attacks from leaking out to potentially cause harm to anyone that had come to watch the team battle event.

The large group was in the lobby of the stadium, before they entered the arena itself. As they all waited around in their hero costumes, the fifty-three members of the U.A. team all heard Aizawa's voice call out to them. Looking over, all of them saw Aizawa, along with Sekijiro and Hizashi walk up to them. The underground hero gestured to all of them before he spoke to give them some words of encouragement.

"Well, brats," Aizawa began, "Today is the day. You all will be facing off against the team of ten that Royal Woods High brought with them." Crossing his arms over his chest, Aizawa gently shook his head, letting out a troubled sigh. "…All I can do at this point is to tell you brats to all do your best. It would be amazing if you actually won, but there's no shame in losing a fair fight to a stronger op-"

"Excuse me, Mr. Aizawa!" a random and fairly young sounding male voice called out, making the teachers and some of the students turn to see Lincoln come walking over. The white-haired boy was accompanied by a single late-teens girl; she was blonde, and dressed like a certain green-haired succubus from a certain fighting game series. Gesturing to the girl that was with him, Lincoln said, "This is Carol Pingrey. She's the captain of the team that will be representing Royal Woods High in the team battle event."

Giving the two Americans a curious look, Aizawa said, "And she's here because…?"

Gesturing to Carol, Lincoln explained, "She wanted to formally meet with whoever is the captain of the U.A. team and exchange pleasantries in a show of good sportsmanship. You know, wish one another good luck and all."

The teachers turned around to face the U.A. team, with Hizashi saying, "Ooh, which one of you all is the captain for the team?" The fifty-three U.A. students all looked a bit surprised, a sign that none of them had even thought of who to elect as the captain of their school's team for the team battle event. The whole lot of them got into a big group huddle, there was some discussion thrown around, and after a few brief moments the huddle broke. Nejire and Tamaki pushed Mirio forward while saying that the blonde boy was the team captain for the U.A. team, having been elected to the position by pretty much everyone else on the team.

Seeing that he was representing his school's team, Mirio stepped forward and held his hand out to Carol. "I hope that your team is ready for some serious competition," the blonde boy said, "Because U.A. is Japan's top hero high school, so there's no way that we'll be going down easy. You better give it your all." Lincoln spoke to Carol in English before she spoke herself in the same language as she reached out and accepted Mirio's handshake.

"Carol said that she believes she speaks for the whole of Royal Woods High's team when she says that all of them are looking forward to it," Lincoln translated. With pleasantries exchanged, Carol and Lincoln took their leave, allowing the U.A. team and the three U.A. teachers be. When the Americans had left, Mirio turned to face everyone else.

Nejire had a serious look on her face as she crossed her arms over her chest. "So that girl dressed like Morrigan is the captain of the Royal Woods High team. So now we know who two out of the ten members of the opposing team are."

The other members of the Big Three nodded in agreement, with Tamaki saying, "Since she's the leading member of the opposing team, we may want to prioritize taking her out. You know, so as to take out the opposing team's command structure." Mirio and Nejire, as well as some of the first years, nodded in agreement

"Either way, you all better get out into the arena," Hizashi advised the U.A. team, "You should not keep our opponents waiting." The U.A. team all nodded in the affirmative, with the senseis all leading them out so that they could face their destiny.

* * *

The fifty-three members of the U.A. team stood as a group on one far end of the Sports Festival Stadium arena, looking at the far end opposite of them as that's where the team for Royal Woods High would be coming out of. Many of the first years, all of them dreading having to face off against a team that was most likely going to beat them anyway; even Tamaki, one of the Big Three, had his doubts about U.A. pulling off a win today. But Nejire, turning to face the others on the U.A. team, wore a look of fierce determination as she addressed all of her fellow U.A. team members.

"Come on, everyone, look alive!" Nejire declared, "Sure, our opponents are bringing a Sacred Heritage quirk user with them, but we knew of that ahead of time, _and_ we prepped a lot for it specifically. I'm certain that, if we stick to our plan, we'll pull of a win here that will send all of Japan into an excited-"

Nejire was cut off when the crowds that were all seated in the bleachers surrounding the arena of the Sports Festival Stadium went wild with excitement, prompting Nejire and the rest of the U.A. team to all turn around. As such, they saw the ten members of the Royal Woods High team, all dressed in their hero costumes, come out from one of the doorways at the far opposite end of the arena. Carol, the captain of the team, was not only in front of her school's team, but she was also approximately in the center.

Right away, the first years spotted Amy Ace, the girl that had the Sacred Heritage quirk, somewhere off to the side of the Royal Woods High party, talking to a girl with fair skin, a beauty mark under one of her eyes, her long brown hair tied back in a ponytail, and she wore a white robe that had light blue trim. The girl that Amy walked with looked dressed like a White Mage-type of character from a video game.

There was also another girl, this one blonde and looking to be of an age comparable to Carol; this girl was dressed like a lady vampire from a certain video game where a hero learned the language of dragons. It was Uraraka who spotted that Luna Loud girl in the Royal Woods High party, having recognized her as one of the girls who helped to save her from some would-be killers back when class 1-A had their field trip to the States. Luna was chatting with the girl who walked next to her, a blonde girl with a streak of blue in her hair.

A fuller-bodied Hispanic girl who looked to be about as old as Carol walked behind where Amy and the White Mage-looking girl walked. None of the U.A. team members could get anything on that girl, but then again when the remaining three persons on Royal Woods High's team started to be recognized, that fuller-bodied Hispanic girl became the last of all of their worries, given that those who were more knowledgeable on the matter knew that things were way too heavily slanted against their favor.

All of class 1-B aside from the new boys in their number recognized the blonde girl dressed like a Viking as the girl who lost her temper and nearly attacked them had they not run away before she was ready to strike. Izuku and his classmates who were screwed over due to Mineta's antics during their class's field trip all recognized the samurai-looking fellow as Aggro, the guy that the infamous pervert had led into attacking all seven of them. And while the desperado-looking guy who walked next to Aggro did not ring any bells for any on the U.A. team, some of those among their number could just feel an aura of raw power radiate from him, power comparable to what was radiating off of Aggro, Amy and the Viking girl.

Up in the bleachers, in the VIP section where a lot of U.A.'s teachers sat, many of the teachers all felt their hearts drop infinitely. "You…you cannot be serious…" Aizawa said, looking like he had just seen some infinite horror. The underground hero gently shook his head, his eyes as wide as they could possibly go. "…This is sheer insanity. The Royal Woods High team didn't bring one Sacred Heritage quirk user with them." Sekijiro, Hizashi and some of the others turned to face Aizawa when they heard him gulp nervously.

"They brought _four_."

"What?!" Hizashi exclaimed, "That's totally insane! If I didn't know any better, I'd say that the Americans actually want to straight up _kill_ our students!"

Toshinori, from where he sat in the VIP section with the other U.A. teachers, paled as he looked down into the arena, down where the U.A. team stood. The former Symbol of Peace looked to where Izuku stood among the group. Toshinori gulped nervously as he also came to realize that his green-haired protégé was facing not just one, but _four_ opponents of such a level that any of them acting on their own could very easily beat even the current top ten of Japan's pro heroes in a ten on one bout.

The gaunt-faced man sighed in a resigned tone, already knowing full well how the team battle event was going to turn out. "…_Well_, _Enji_," Toshinori thought grimly as he considered the current number one pro hero Endeavor, "_It looks like you_'_ll be getting your wish after all_." As he looked down where Aggro, the Samurai Hero: Sengoku, stood with the rest of the Royal Woods High team, before turning his attention to where Todoroki stood among the U.A. team, Toshinori thought, "_Your youngest son will get to test his fire against the golden flames of Amaterasu_."

Nemuri, from where she was in the announcer's booth with Hound Dog, announced over the arena speaker, "Alright, everyone! Today is the day that all of us have been waiting for!" Even the eighteen only hero recognized that there was more than what everyone at U.A. had been expecting out of the Royal Woods High team, could tell beyond a shadow of a doubt what the end result of the team battle event would be, before said battle even took place.

Even so, Nemuri knew that she and Hound Dog had a job to do, and she would not let anything get in the way of her doing that job. "This team battle event will be between the home team, U.A. High School, and the team from Royal Woods High, visiting Japan all the way from Royal Woods, Michigan over in the United States! Are all of you ready to see the future heroes of Japan take part in their greatest battle yet?"

The crowds cheered wildly, their excitement being taken up to a fever pitch. Down in the arena, many of the U.A. team members gulped nervously as they looked over to the members of the Royal Woods High team. The girl they recognized as Amy was already holding her staff, but that Viking girl also had a golf club, and Aggro had one of his bokken out, a reddish-brown wood number that had faux-leather wrap at the one end serving as a hilt, and said faux leather wrap had red threading. Izuku also saw that Aggro looked to be talking to the rest of his school's team; given that Nemuri-sensei was announcing in Japanese, the Samurai Hero was probably taking care of translating things for the others on his team who didn't speak Japanese.

"Is everyone ready?!" Nemuri announced from the announcer's booth, "Because the team battle event between U.A. and Royal Woods High is about to commence! Okay, students! On the count of three, be ready to give it your all!" Izuku saw Aggro say something to his other teammates, and right away some of them assumed stances showing that they would charge straight ahead at a moment's notice, with the Viking girl looking especially eager for battle. "One," Nemuri called out, "Two-"

*BOOOOOOOOM*

*THWOOOOOOM*

Everything stopped short when the explosions coming from outside of the Sports Festival Stadium caught their attention. From over the edge of the top of the stadium, a number of people within could see large columns of smoke rise up into the skies above from a good distance away. Right away, many of the spectators who came to see the team battle event started to panic; some of the students that were setting up to fight each other, U.A. and Royal Woods High alike, were also alarmed by the sudden interruption that was clearly no sign of something friendly.

Nemuri and Hound Dog, both of which had to leave the announcer's booth to see what was going on, looked up and saw the columns of black smoke that rose up to choke the skies above. "What the hell is going on here?!" Hound Dog exclaimed. Right when Nemuri and Hound Dog were met up by Aizawa, Sekijiro and Hizashi, the five of them were greeted by the pro hero Hawks when he landed right down in the stands next to them. The rattled, wide-eyed look of alarm on the number two hero's face was a sign to the U.A. teachers that something bad was going down.

"The city's being attacked by the Paranormal Liberation Front!" Hawks exclaimed as more of the pro heroes who worked as teachers at U.A. started to gather around, "They came out in full force in a clear effort to take over the city!"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down a cycle there, Hawks," Snipe remarked as he got the number two hero to try and take it easy as he got up from where he sat next to Toshinori. Gesturing to Hawks, the marksman hero asked, "Now then partner, what in tarnation is going on here exactly?"

Hawks breathed in and out a few times, clearly trying to calm himself. "…Like I said, the Paranormal Liberation Front has come out in full force to attack the city in a bid to take all of it over." Gently shaking his head, Hawks said, "If any of you thought that the monster attack from a while ago was insane, then you clearly have not seen how many numbers are commanded by the villains running the Front."

Scoffing incredulously, Sekijiro said, "Pfft, it can't be all _that_ bad. I mean, it's not like-"

"There are over one-hundred _thousand_ villains attacking the city right now," Hawks interrupted, his tone serious, "And all of them are fighting side by side, united under the banner of the Front." All of the pro heroes talking to the current number two went wide-eyed with alarm, having clearly heard what Hawks said despite how everyone else in the stands were panicking in an effort to get out of the stadium and somewhere safe.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Aizawa had a look of grimness on his face. "…I got it that an epic attack involving the villains was going to occur at some point, but I got it that we had a four month time limit." Turning to look at Hawks, the underground hero said, "That was only two months ago, so the villains are attacking two months early."

Hawks gently shook his head, a look of guilt on his face. "That Re-Destro fellow was able to come up with enough excuses to convince the Front's grand commander, that Shigaraki fellow, to move things up ahead of their schedule."

Toshinori looked as if he was dealing with a mix of emotions; the grandson of his mentor Nana, who had been lured into villainy by that most unforgivable bastard All For One, was now not only in command of a massive army of villains, but was now as he and everyone in the arena spoke leading said army in an attack on the city. The former Symbol of Peace truly wished at that moment that he still had some of his power left.

The heroes were going to need all the help that they could get in saving the city from the attacking villains.

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Author's notes;

So yeah, in case any of you were wondering, I wasn't actually going to have the U.A. students' fight against the Royal Woods High team take place, but rather have their fated battle interrupted before the first hit was even thrown. What I actually had planned was for the heroes-yes, all of them-to fight side by side with not just one another but _all manner_ of allies to repel the Paranormal Liberation Front in what I am hoping to make into the biggest battle in this story not just to date, but for the rest of its entirety until it eventually comes to a close (a close that won't be happening anytime soon, in case any of you were wondering). Also, since the big fight with the PLF is happening two months early here than it does in the series proper, you can expect a lot of things to be different.

The next chapter will be the first of a mini-arc that will take up the rest of the 'Team battle' arc. Now, considering what will be happening over the next couple of chapters, I figured that it was best if I said this now; starting from the next chapter and going on for the rest of the 'Team battle arc', there are going to be a _**LOT**_ of deaths. **_Named character_** deaths. It's something that comes with the territory when a large army of **_villains_** decides to attack a city with the intent of taking it over/fighting the heroes who defend it.

Sure, a good number of the attacking villains are on the chopping block, with one of them at the end of this arc meeting his (yes, it will be a _male_ villain) end because of something that will tie heavily to one of the arcs that will be following this one. After all, the villains, even with their vast, overwhelming numbers, can't expect to pull off a stunt like attacking the city and come out of things in the end without a scratch. But that doesn't mean some of the heroes, as well as some of their allies, will emerge unscathed either.

You have been warned.


	39. Chapter 39

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter thirty-nine: Villain Siege part one- Tarnished Spoon

The teams that respectively represented U.A. High School and Royal Woods High were caught off guard by the sudden development in the team battle event today. At first, all of them thought that all that would be going on was their respective sides fighting against one another, with many on the U.A. team very much doubting that they would win because the Royal Woods High team had a total of four Sacred Heritage quirk users.

However, the battle never actually took place at all; right before Nemuri, the eighteen only hero Midnight, could finish the count to signal the start of the team battle event, everything was interrupted when explosions from outside of the Sports Festival Stadium sounded off in the distance, with said explosions followed closely by large columns of black, choking smoke slowly rising up into the skies above. Seeing the smoke and hearing the explosions made everyone on both teams take pause and look over to where they could see the smoke.

It was as all of the students, U.A. and Royal Woods High alike, looked at the rising smoke that they were all approached by a group of five U.A. teachers, those being Aizawa, Sekijiro, Hizashi, Nemuri and Hound Dog. The teachers were also accompanied by Mrs. Butterbean, the principal of Royal Woods High, and the two guests that were brought along by the Americans visiting Japan, Lori Loud and her kid brother Lincoln.

"Senseis, what's going on?" Izuku asked in a worried, concerned tone as he pointed to the smoke that was steadily rising up in the horizon.

"(What in the name of Odin is happening?)" Allison Ace demanded in English as she pointed to the rising smoke with Yonfour, her cherished four-iron golf club.

It wasn't just Deku or Asgardian who were asking what was happening; essentially everyone from both teams was wondering just exactly what was going on. After he gestured for everyone to settle down, Aizawa began to explain what was happening in Japanese, with both Lincoln and Aggro taking the cue to translate things for their English-only fellows.

"A large force of villains known collectively as the Paranormal Liberation Front has just started a massive attack on the city," the underground hero began, "We have no idea what their exact intent is, but we can reasonably assume that taking over the city is a very likely candidate in that regard. They may also what to kill as many pro heroes as possible." Aizawa, with a grim look on his face, crossed his arms over his chest as he spoke. "From what we were able to gather, there are well over one-hundred thousand villains in this attacking force."

Hearing exactly how many villains were all in the attacking force that was striking the city as they all spoke sent most of the students into a panic. Even the more belligerent among U.A.'s number, like Bakugo and Akuma, paled when they heard just how many villains were now in the process of attacking the city. The monster attack from a while ago, when the late warlord Hirajo tried to have his way, looked like _nothing_ compared to what the Paranormal Liberation Front had just brought to the table.

Gesturing to the students, Aizawa said, "It goes without saying that we're going to have to put the team battle event here on hold. Hell, we may end up having to cancel the whole damn thing altogether." As Aggro and Lincoln continued to translate, Aizawa said, "As much as I don't want to have to say this, all of you kids are most likely going to be needed in helping to fight off all of the attacking villains."

"(Mrs. Butterbean said that everyone on Royal Woods High's team should help as well, if our hosts here are okay with it,)" Lincoln said in English to the students on the American team. The white-haired boy, at Mrs. Butterbean's instruction, told the Japanese hosts what he had just said to the English-only speakers, drawing surprised looks out of all of them.

Once they had collected their thoughts, the U.A. teachers all nodded in agreement. "Given what we're faced here with exactly," Sekijiro said, "I don't think that we're in any position to turn down any and all help we can get." Lincoln provided the translations from Japanese to English, then Mrs. Butterbean gestured for her students to come over.

After the ten members of the Royal Woods High team had gathered around, Mrs. Butterbean said in English, "(Kids, you all are going to have to help our Japanese hosts with fighting off all of the attacking villains. There's at least one-hundred thousand attacking opponents, though. Who here thinks they can do it?)"

Many of those who were in that area turned to look at Allison when she gave an amused, boisterous laugh. "(Now that is more like it!)" the Viking Hero proclaimed, clearly amused by the sheer number of opponents that she and her friends were being faced with, "(And here I was beginning to think I would not face sufficient battle on this journey!)" She rested the swinging end of Yonfour over her right shoulder while still gripping the handle with her right hand. "(Let all of those foul villains come my way! I shall meet them all in battle!)"

Aizawa and Hizashi, who both knew enough English to understand what Allison was saying, felt a little relief wash over them. Having someone like Asgardian fighting alongside them would be a greatly appreciated boon to the efforts of the Japanese pro heroes in stopping the Paranormal Liberation Front. Similarly, the U.A. teachers became more and more relieved when the other Sacred Heritage quirk users also pledged to help them defeat the attacking villains.

Even so, since there was over one-hundred _thousand_ villains attacking the city right now, a good number of the Japanese pro heroes had their doubts that the quirked heroes on their side would be sufficient to drive back the forces under the command of the villain Shigaraki. The heroes knew that they were going to need all the help that they could get just so that they could come out of things in the end alive.

…A luxury that some will soon learn not _all_ of them will get to share.

* * *

As soon as a proper structure of command was set up, the heroes and the heroes-in-training rushed out of the Sports Festival Stadium, left U.A. grounds, and proceeded to make their way into the thick of the city. It wasn't long until they first spotted a large group of villains, totaling about twenty or so. All of them were quickly defeated by ranged quirk attacks, most of which were fired by the Sacred Heritage quirk users, all four of which had their elemental cloaks up.

"We're going to have to split up here, listeners!" Hizashi said, "Cover more ground so as to take care of more villains!"

"Do be careful, brats," Aizawa said before he and the other U.A. teachers took their leave from the students, "The last thing that any of us want is to have to tell your families that you were badly injured in the attack and are stuck at the hospital." After all of the teachers had taken their leave, with Aizawa having left a particularly lingering glance of concern aimed at Shinso before he (Aizawa) left with the teachers, the students all turned to face one another.

Soon after the U.A. teachers had split away from the students, everyone had broken up to go fight off as many of the attacking villains as possible, some of them choosing to go off on their own against the cautious, mildly worried advice of Yaoyorozu. Not all of the students had split off from the main bulk of the combined U.A. and Royal Woods High group in order to go it alone in the villain attack, though; Todoroki and his girlfriend Reiko went off as a pair, agreeing that staying side by side with one another was a safer idea.

The ghost girl gulped nervously as she walked alongside the dual-toned boy, a clear sign that she was cared by the fact that the city was currently being attacked by a force of at least one-hundred thousand villains. "Todoroki, I'm scared," Reiko admitted as she turned to look at him, "I can't believe that this attack is really happening."

"There is no need to be worried, Reiko," Todoroki assured the girl who had stolen his heart, glad (for more than one reason) that she decided to stick by him when everyone decided to split up to cover more ground in fighting off the villains, "So long as the two of us stick close to each other, then I fail to see anything that would possibly-"

Todoroki was cut off when Reiko gave off a pained grunt as she fell over face-first, only to be caught from falling by someone who stood behind her, throwing their arm around her stomach then picking her up and holding her unconscious form as if she were a sack of potatoes. When Todoroki saw who it was that had knocked out his girlfriend and was taking her as a hostage, the dual natured-quirk boy was not only enraged to see _him_ of all people again, but he also felt a case of déjà vu.

Dabi, with Spinner on his left and Toga on his right, gave Todoroki a nod of acknowledgement as he carried the knocked out Reiko under his right arm. "We meet again, Son of Endeavor," the blue flame villain greeted in a casual tone, a tone that suggested that Dabi saw his talking to Todoroki as if he were addressing an old friend. Turning to face his right, which prompted the two other villains to do the same, Dabi gave Todoroki a knowing smirk as he said, "You know what to do."

Todoroki wasted no time in giving chase the moment Dabi, Spinner and Toga took off with the ghost girl of class 1-B. The youngest child of Endeavor couldn't believe it; once again the cutest girl ever was being kidnapped by villains and used as bait to lure him off somewhere. As he ran after the villains, intent on rescuing Reiko from them, Todoroki began to calm down a bit when he gave the blue flame villain's last line a bit of thought.

_You know what to do_.

If this was anything like the last time that Dabi had kidnapped Reiko and used her as bait to lure him off somewhere away from a lot of action, then Todoroki suspected that Dabi's goal here, just like it was when he showed up on U.A. grounds during the mercenary siege a while ago, was to take him away from all of the action for his (Todoroki's) benefit. The two-toned boy still had no idea why Dabi had so much investment in securing safety for him, but all questions related to that trail of thought were the last thing on Todoroki's mind.

All that concerned Todoroki at the moment was that Reiko was in danger, and he wouldn't rest until he got her back from the villains, safe and sound.

* * *

"This is insane!" Gray Fullbuster yelled as he took out a group of several villains by casting Ice Demon's Rage at them. Turning around, the ice mage of Fairy Tail saw his fellow mages Natsu, Gajeel and Erza fight many villains themselves, with Erza even slashing a villain from head to toe, bisecting him and creating a rather gory mess in the process. "Where the hell did all of these guys show up from?!" Gray exclaimed.

Gajeel, after slamming a villain square in the face with the blunt end of an Iron Dragon's Club, turned around to face his cryomancer ally. "I have no fucking clue, Fullbuster!" A villain tried to run up from behind the Iron Dragon Slayer mage from behind, but that villain's attack was useless as Gajeel had his Iron Dragon's Scales up, that sneak attack did nothing but alert Gajeel to the fact that someone was behind him.

The mages continued to fight off the villains that they had caught attacking the area outside of the hotel they were staying at while they awaited for more of their allies from Fairy Tail to come to the city here. Originally, the four mages were set to go pick up a party of mages from their guild from the train station, then head over to the stadium located over on U.A. grounds to watch the big team battle event.

But when the villains started to attack, Natsu and the others were caught off guard, as they at that moment just walked out of the front doors of their hotel. Natsu and Gajeel, knowing that the party at the train station was already in the city, sent Happy and Pantherlily to go over and tell the party what had happened. It was the hopes of the Fairy Tail mages that the two exceed would make it to the train station and alert the others over there of the villain attack, although all four of them suspected that the others would probably have noticed things by now.

* * *

"Detroit Smash!" Izuku yelled as he slugged one of the fodder villains square in the jaw with a five percent Detroit Smash, sending that no name villain flying. The green-eyed boy was not alone fighting in that area; fighting alongside him were the duo of Mirio and Lincoln. Sure, both were surely proving themselves in the ongoing villain attack, and Mirio technically had taken out more villains than Izuku had so far.

Even so, the blonde boy of the Big Three was technically quirkless, as he lost his awesome quirk a while ago due to getting hit by a quirk destroying bullet. And while Lincoln, the protégé of Sengoku, had a quirk that eerily reminded Izuku of a certain hero killer from a while ago, that did not change the fact that the white-haired boy was an elementary schooler. Izuku could not help but worry about his companions, as one was quirkless and the other was a school kid.

Lincoln, using a unique bowie knife, cut the exposed left forearm of a female fodder villain, drawing her blood. Jumping back, Lincoln licked the blood on his bowie knife off, and not one second later the female fodder villain dropped to the ground, completely overcome with a strong case of paralysis. As for Mirio, he quickly took out three of the fodder villains by slugging them all in their respective stomachs, in quick order. When the blonde boy took out his third villain from that number, all of the villains in that area had been defeated.

"Wow, you're pretty good for someone who hasn't even been enrolled in a hero high school yet," Mirio remarked to Lincoln as the two of them and Izuku gathered up the defeated villains and made sure none of them would cause any more trouble.

The white-haired boy nodded only once in acknowledgement of Mirio's complement. "Well I did learn everything I know about fighting from Aggro-sensei."

"Yeah, Mirio-sempai," Izuku remarked after he finished tying up the female fodder villain that Lincoln had paralyzed, "Remember that story I told you about what happened to me and some of my classmates during our field trip because Mineta essentially used us as scapegoats?" Pointing to Lincoln, Izuku continued, "Yeah, it was his sensei that did that number to all seven of us."

Mirio let out a whistle, one that sounded a mix of impressed and mildly shaken. "Wow, and he's one of the guys on the team that we almost fought had it not been for the sudden villain attack on the city." Gently shaking his head, Mirio said, "Royal Woods High must really be desperate to win the team battle event if they threw multiple Sacred Heritage quirk users like him onto their school's team."

"Things for quirked persons over where Aggro-sensei and I live aren't as liberal as they are here in Japan," Lincoln explained, drawing mildly surprised looks out of Izuku and Mirio. The white-haired boy nodded once in confirmation. "There are no schools or any sort of programs that help those with quirks learn how to use their powers effectively," Lincoln went on, "The closest thing that we got to all of that is a League of Heroes that my little sister Lisa started up. But other than that, there's no command structure, no proper training programs, nothing." Looking up to his counterparts that lived in Japan, Lincoln said, "You guys here in Japan have the Michigan area beat by a mile in a number of areas."

"You guys lack many of the resources and programs that we here take for granted?" Mirio asked, looking a bit surprised.

Nodding once, Lincoln explained, "That's part of why my sister Lori's friend Carol, along with Principal Butterbean of Royal Woods High, went through as much trouble as they did to assemble the team to represent their school against you guys in the team battle event. If Royal Woods High won against you guys here, then the schoolboard for Michigan would have to divert some resources in order to start up many of the programs you guys are accustomed to here for not just Royal Woods High, but for schools all over the state. It would save so much trouble in the long run by avoiding accidents where elementary school kids younger than me accidentally cause a lot of damage because they don't know what to do with their quirks."

Izuku and Mirio exchanged mildly concerned looks with one another; the programs offered by hero high schools in Japan, the establishment of the pro hero profession, various quirk-related laws, and other such things that help to set up the life in Japan that they had long since grown accustomed to, seemed to be virtually non-existent over in Royal Woods, as well as most other parts of the state of Michigan.

Not only that, but the reason why Mrs. Butterbean brought as much firepower to throw against the U.A. team was because if she won, then steps would be taken to give that area of the country the very things that quirked Japanese society now currently takes for granted. At first, Izuku and Mirio both thought that the Americans simply wanted to not only beat the top hero high school of Japan, but to do so in a way that not only humiliated U.A., but did so in a way that would make it clear that they weren't even being given a fair chance. But now…now that both Izuku and Mirio knew that Royal Woods High brought four Sacred Heritage quirk users with them because they wanted to ensure that their students and students all over Michigan would be able to get what they in Japan have grown accustomed to?

They realized that U.A. wasn't the _only_ one forcefully placed into a tight spot.

* * *

At some point during all of the fighting in the city, Uraraka and Eunice ended up meeting up with and joining Artemis Norio of class 1-B. "Goddamn it, where the hell did all of these villains show up from?!" the exoskeletoned boy exclaimed as he floated overhead while firing energy shots from his hands at the villains below. Similarly, Uraraka was using her quirk to fly above the villains below, and Eunice, her noise-canceling headphones worn over her ears, was using her powerful telekinesis quirk to stay in the air.

Gently shaking her head, Uraraka said, "I have no clue at all, Artemis!" Canceling the zero-gravity she had put on a dumpster, the gravity girl flung said dumpster at a group of villains, making them all scramble to get out of the way, even though three of them were hit by the attack. "Hey, how are you able to fly, Artemis?" Uraraka asked.

After he blasted another villain with an energy shot from his right hand, Artemis said without turning around, "My quirk is called Martial Ki. It lets me control and manipulate a kind of energy that I've come to call Ki." He fired another energy shot at another fodder villain, striking said villain square in the face and sending him reeling back. "By manipulating this energy, I can do things such as fly, fire energy shots from my hands, and enhance my strength and speed," the exoskeletoned boy continued to explain, "My quirk also has had the side effect of giving me the appearance that I have."

"You must be really strong!" Eunice remarked to Artemis without turning to face him as she unleashed a powerful telekinetic push attack at some of the fodder villains below her, Uraraka and Artemis. After the fodder villains were thrown back by the force that they were hit with, Eunice went on, "I bet that you can-"

Eunice was cut off when she, as well as Uraraka and Artemis, all heard a loud, draconic roar from the distance. Looking over, all three of them saw a large dragon with gray scales, some human skin tone over various parts of its body, and it appeared to be wearing a red sleeveless dress that was clearly of oriental design. Artemis looked a bit confused, but both Uraraka and Eunice looked relieved upon seeing the dragon, not paying mind to the fact that it appeared to be carrying something in its arms.

"Oh, it's Ryukyu-sensei," Uraraka said in a relieved tone, "Thank goodness that she's here to help us fight all of these-" The gravity girl was cut off when Ryukyu, in her dragon from, flew past all of the fighting, as if she wasn't even aware that said fighting was taking place at all. In fact, the Dragoon Hero flew by too quickly for either girl to keep up with what they were seeing, although Artemis did get a vague look at what Ryukyu was carrying in her arms.

The exoskeletoned boy, with a confused look on his face, said, "…It looked like she was carrying an injured person away from all the fighting."

"Injured person?" Uraraka said as she dropped another heavy object that her powers were floating on the villains below, knocking out at least two of them.

Artemis nodded once in the affirmative. "From what I saw, the person that Ryukyu-sensei was carrying had long, dark-colored hair." Artemis put his hands together, charged up an energy attack that started off as a sphere of energy in between his hands, then he threw his hands forward, creating a giant energy beam attack that tore up the battlefield below, tossing up many of the fodder villains and knocking them out. "That's all I saw of the person Ryukyu-sensei was carrying, though."

Uraraka and Eunice could not help but worry about whoever it was that Ryukyu was carrying away from all of the fighting. But since they were being escorted to safety by the Dragoon Hero, the two 1-A girls had all the confidence that their sensei, the pro hero that employed the two of them and their classmate Tsuyu as interns, would make sure than nothing bad would befall that person, whoever he or she was.

All that Artemis could think about the matter was that he noticed the tear-filled look of heartbreak on Ryukyu's face as she flew by with whoever it was that she was carrying. Neither of the girls that were with the exoskeletoned boy noticed that look, and Artemis did not want either of them to worry about that poor person, not while there were still a good number of fodder villains below them for them to take out.

* * *

Using a metal staff that she had conjured with her quirk, Yaoyorozu struck several fodder villains upside their respective heads, knocking them all out. A few more fodder villains tried to rush the wealthy girl from the side, but they were quickly tied up and bound by green, thorny vines that came in out of nowhere. Looking over, Yaoyorozu saw that she was joined by the timely arrival of Ibara, who severed her hair vines that bound the captured villains, only for said hair vines to quickly grow back to their standard length.

"Thanks for the save, Ibara!" Yaoyorozu replied in thanks as she gave the devout Christian an appreciative salute.

Ibara nodded only once in acknowledgement. "There is no need to thank me, Yaoyorozu." The vine-haired girl turned her attention to face another group of villains, taking them out with a massive burst via her Via Dolorosa super move. "If these villains were to have their way, then all that is precious would be forfeit. Their evil must be stopped here and now, and in the name of God, I swear that I will see to it that-"

Ibara was cut off when something large and heavy was sent flying her way. It wasn't until the devout Christian was barely able to catch it with a mass wall of her vines that she saw that it was a car that was chucked at her. "…What in the name of God could have done that?" Ibara said, shocked that someone was able to so casually throw a vehicle at her.

"Yeah, I want to know who it was too," Yaoyorozu said as she turned to face the direction that the car was thrown from, roughly at the same time that Ibara herself turned to look in that direction. When the two U.A. girls did so, they saw a balding, orange-haired man in a business suit and riding in what appeared to be some special, three-wheeled wheelchair. The man's arms were both very large, pitch black, and let out arcs of raw energy.

The man scoffed in annoyance when he saw that his attack had no effect in the end. "Feh, foolish fledgling heroes," the man sneered, "If you think that the likes of you can stand up to the Paranormal Liberation Front and its exalted Grand Commander, then the two of you both have another thing coming!"

Ibara came up to Yaoyorozu's side as the two of them faced off against the villain that stood before them. "…I get the feeling that this one here is a leading member of the massive force of villains that are attacking the city," Yaoyorozu muttered to Ibara in a grim and worried tone as the villain before them, his arms still big and radiating energy, slowly approached.

"Oh, I am glad to see that you fledgling heroes aren't too stupid to realize the obvious!" the villain taunted as he clapped his black, massive hands, apparently having heard what the wealthy girl had said despite the distance and volume. Bowing in a mock respectful manner to the two U.A. girls, the villain said, "Please, allow me the pleasure of introducing myself. I am the great Re-Destro, and I serve as one of the lieutenants under the Paranormal Liberation Front's supreme leader."

Yaoyorozu and Ibara backed up a bit as the both of them prepared to fire attacks at Re-Destro at a distance. But the PLF lieutenant would be having none of that. Pulling back his massive hands, Rikiya used his quirk to focus all of his stress, anger and fear into more of the energy that had made his arms and hands so large and radiating with raw power. To the ever-growing alarm of the two U.A. girls, more of Re-Destro grew larger, stronger and became pitch black.

Yaoyorozu and Ibara both took steps back as their opponent grew larger and stronger still. By the time he was done, Re-Destro was a truly large, hulking black monster that towered over the two of them, looking down at them with a sneering grin. "No doubt Shigaraki will be most pleased with me when I tell him of my victory over two of the brats under U.A.'s protection!" Re-Destro proclaimed as he swung his massive fists towards Yaoyorozu and Ibara.

The two girls both jumped to move out of the way, with Ibara pulling herself out of the way with her vines that were grabbing onto a nearby streetlight, and Yaoyorozu quickly running while she was forming a rocket launcher out of her stomach. When her weapon was finished forming, the wealthy girl took aim and fired at Rikiya, hitting him on the outer side of his left bicep. It was to Yaoyorozu's worry that her attack hardly did anything other than get the villain's attention.

Re-Destro tried to throw a swinging fist at Yaoyorozu, but the fist was quickly caught by vines that flew at it, tied it up and tried to hold it back. Only Re-Destro's piqued curiosity was what stopped his fist from actually hitting Yaoyorozu. Looking over, the villain saw that Ibara was trying to keep his attack from hitting the wealthy girl. "Oh? Trying to save your fellow fledgling hero now, are we?" Rikiya asked in an amused, mildly taunting manner, "That's quite the noble gesture there, young lady." With a tug, the villain yanked Ibara towards him, as her vines were still wrapped around his forearm and fist.

"Too bad it will cost you a world of pain!" Rikiya proclaimed in a somewhat hysteric manner as Ibara flew towards him. When the devout Christian got close enough to him, he swung his free hand up and, taking aim at Ibara, swung his hand down as if her were swatting a fly. Due to the angle, Ibara wasn't smacked into the ground face-first like the villain intended, but rather he dealt her a painful grazing smack that knocked the wind from her lungs and made her vines on his bound arm loosen their grip.

Feeling the loosening of those vines, Re-Destro pulled his bound arm free, then swung his now free fist at Ibara, striking her on her left side and sending her flying into the side of an abandoned family vehicle, hitting said vehicle rather hard. "Ibara!" Yaoyorozu cried out of worry for her fellow U.A. schoolmate as she watched the devout Christian fall to her knees before falling over face first onto the ground. Incited by seeing the beating that Ibara had just been dealt, Yaoyorozu quickly spun on her heels to face the villain that had attacked the vine-haired girl.

"You bastard!" Yaoyorozu yelled as she put as much effort into her quirk to quickly create a cannon to fire a cannonball at Re-Destro. Although she did successfully create the cannon, the wealthy girl barely got it out and sitting on the ground by the time Re-Destro swung his large left fist towards her, striking her right side and sending her stumbling over a good bit. Yaoyorozu wasn't even given time to regain her footing when Re-Destro, with an overhead swing, swatted at her, striking her brutally hard.

The air knocked from her lungs, Yaoyorozu fell over onto the ground, the pain of some broken ribs and fractured bones in her right arm over whelming her. Yaoyorozu was conscious when she heard Re-Destro boast loudly about how he had just defeated them, saying that it was his right to put fledgling heroes like her and 'that vine-haired girl' as he called Ibara in their place for daring to question the Front and its esteemed ruler in any way.

It was a stroke of luck that Rikiya turned around and left that area, believing his work in that area of the city during the villain attack to be over. Yaoyorozu was barely able to hold her head up as she watched the departing villain take his leave. Turning her head, Yaoyorozu saw that Ibara laid just a few feet away, laying face-down on the ground. "H-Hey, Ibara," Yaoyorozu said weakly, "Can y-you get-"

Yaoyorozu stopped short suddenly when she noticed something about the look on Ibara's face, something that filled her with heartbreak. The half-closed, tired looking expression that Ibara had was not moving in the slightest. Ibara did not look over at Yaoyorozu at all as her eyes looked like they were losing all of their light, glossing over somewhat as the devout Christian laid on the ground, still and unmoving.

"N-No…" Yaoyorozu muttered weakly in despair as the vine-haired girl of 1-B wasn't moving at all, not to anything that she tried to say to rouse her from her slumber, a slumber that she would not be awakening from. Yaoyorozu tried to force herself up off of the ground, to go over to Ibara to try and do something, anything. But all energy failed her as she tried to get up, having been overcome by a mix of her injuries and generous usage of her quirk since the villain attack on the city had started.

That villain…the one in the custom wheelchair-like contraption that he used to get around. He did this. It was his actions that resulted in Ibara's ultimate fate here. Yaoyorozu tried to use the rage that suddenly fueled her to get herself up, but even that wasn't enough as she collapsed back onto the ground, her head turned to look at where Ibara laid eerily still. The wealthy girl felt all of her efforts, all of her own energies, start to fail her. "I-Ibara…" Yaoyorozu muttered weakly as her lazy gaze started to close, "I'm…I'm…" With nothing more available that she was able to give, Yaoyorozu's eyes closed.

All of her world then faded to black.

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Author's notes;

Well the villain's attack on the city has just kicked off in earnest. It will be going on for quite some time over the next few chapters, and by the time all is said and done, things aren't going to be the same. Even with some of the heroes' allies showing up in this chapter, with more various allies showing up over the next few chapters as well, the forces of good will still take some serious hits, as well as losses that won't be leaving any dry eyes. Such is the way of things when a large force of **_villains_** decides to attack everyone and everything.

Anyway, the next chapter will be seeing more fighting in the ongoing attack as the heroes struggle to stop the Paranormal Liberation Front from trying to destroy all that the innocent holds dear to their hearts. A good number of villains will be taken out, but the good guys will also end up taking a few lumps as well. It wouldn't be really realistic if a battle like this happens and the good guys emerge in the end without a scratch.


	40. Chapter 40

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter forty: Villain Siege part two- Fallen Power Line

Todoroki was chasing the trio of villains known as Dabi, Spinner and Toga through some alleyways during the ongoing villain attack on the city, an attack orchestrated by the Paranormal Liberation Front. The youngest child of Endeavor was in hot pursuit of the villain trio as Dabi was carrying the two-toned boy's girlfriend, Reiko Yanagi, under his right arm, having knocked the ghost girl of class 1-B unconscious.

"Hey Dabi, I think Mr. Strawberry-Swirl behind us is catching up," Toga said in a warning tone as she and her friends continued to keep a lead, albeit barely just as, true to what the psychotic schoolgirl had said, Todoroki was getting closer and closer.

Dabi, having turned his gaze to look behind him and see Todoroki getting closer, nodded once in acknowledgement as he turned his attention to Toga and Spinner. "We just need to get him far away enough to make sure that he stays out of all of the fighting," the blue flame villain said as he and the others continued to lead Todoroki on.

The two-toned boy heard what Dabi said, and growled a bit in annoyance. "What is it about me that has you so interested in keeping me away from helping my friends fight off attacks launched against us?!" Todoroki snapped, "So interested that you'd resort to kidnapping my girlfriend and using her as bait to lure me away?!"

"Girlfriend?" Dabi said, his tone resonating with piqued interest and surprise as he suddenly came to a stop. This likewise prompted both Spinner and Toga to stop as well. Todoroki came to a stop as well, with his arms respectively releasing their appropriate elements in a clear sign that he wouldn't hesitate to attack the bastards that dared to kidnap Reiko.

Gesturing to Todoroki, Dabi said with a mildly confused look on her face, "I thought that she was only the girl that you had a crush on."

Todoroki, even with all of the rage he felt towards the trio of villains before him, dropped some of his hostility upon hearing the shift in Dabi's tone. "…I was able to convince her to go out with me a short while ago," the youngest child of Endeavor remarked, "Reiko and I have officially been dating for the last few weeks." Dabi's reaction not only caught Todoroki by surprise, but also Spinner and Toga.

The blue flame villain actually _laughed_. In sincere, congratulatory-sounding amusement.

"Well hot damn!" Dabi remarked as he gestured to Todoroki, "You actually got yourself a girlfriend! Way to go, little man!"

"Why…" Todoroki began, his tone and expression both showing that he was lost and confused, "…Why are you congrat-"

Todoroki found himself cut off when an older female voice called out, "Holy shit, dudes! It's those crazy weirdos who attacked the mall where Harold's student lives!" The two-toned boy looked around in confusion, although the trio of villains, all apparently recognizing the voice that had spoken up, looked around like something none of them would find pleasant was about to be taking place in that alleyway.

"…Oh hell the fuck no," Dabi swore, his eyes widening with alarm, "Don't tell me that those crazy-" The blue flame villain was cut off when a certain trio of older shinobi plus a large dog with an eyepatch and a missing ear from the village of Konohakagure all landed in that area, between Todoroki and the villains. "Shit! It really is them!" Dabi exclaimed, "It's those old, crazy ninjas from one of the elemental nations, plus that old lady's talking dog!"

"Ah, so you remember the lads and I!" the pink-haired man of the group said as he walked forward towards the villains. Jerking a thumb at his chest, the pink-haired man proclaimed, "You three weirdos who assisted that fat sack of crap back in Royal Woods shan't be getting away with whatever it is you three are doing with that unconscious girl!"

Todoroki, as he looked on at what was going on, could not believe anything he was hearing or seeing. "Umm…" Todoroki spoke up, getting the old lady ninja and her dog to turn to face him. Gesturing to the shinobi, Todoroki asked, "Who…exactly are you guys?"

The large dog that wore an eyepatch and was missing an ear began to speak, and if it wasn't for the fact that the principal of Todoroki's school was a talking giant rat, then the two-toned boy would have been more surprised. "Tsume, her friends Harold and Inoichi, and I are shinobi from the village of Konohagakure, the resident ninja village of the Land of Fire," the talking dog began to explain, "We, as well as some other notable shinobi from Konoha, were here in the city when all of these villains started whatever it was that they're doing."

"It's just like when a bunch of Konoha's boys in blue were deployed to the city during the monster attack a while ago," the older man with the long blonde ponytail remarked. Turning to look towards the trio of villains, the blonde older man said, "Hey Harold, we need to pull out all the stops to take these jokers down."

The pink-haired man, apparently named Harold, nodded in agreement as he and his blonde friend walked forward a few steps. "Right you are, Inoichi." Suddenly, the two older men grabbed their clothes and, in one swift motion, ripped off everything that they wore, revealing that they wore outfits underneath their regular clothes, with said outfits consisting of nothing more than grass skirts and beaded necklaces that looked to be of tribal make. Both Harold and Inoichi also had pairs of mere clubs tucked into the wastes of their respective grass skirts.

The two older men both assumed battle stances, and proceeded to dance while chanting at the trio of villains. "Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora ka ora! Ka mate, ka mate! Ka ora ka ora! Tenei te tangata puhuruhuru Nana nei I tiki mai whakawhiti te ra! A upane! Ka, upane! A upane, ka upane whiti te ra!" Harold and Inoichi finished their dance by sticking their tongues out at Dabi, Spinner and Toga.

"…Dabi?" Spinner said in a confused and lost tone.

"Yes, Spinner?" Dabi's tone was very similar to that of his lizard man friend's.

"What the fuck did we just witness, Dabi?"

The blue flame villain, with a dumbfounded expression on his face, merely shook his head. "I honestly wish that I could tell you that, Spinner." The villains did not have the time to wonder about what the fuck the two older shinobi men just did, as Harold and Inoichi both ran right at them, their mere clubs in their hands. Tsume and her talking dog likewise charged at the trio of villains, who were too confused and surprised to effectively stop the charge. As such, Dabi and his allies were forced to fight off the trio of older shinobi plus the large, talking dog.

Todoroki, who carried the unconscious Reiko on his back, was not going to question all that the older folks did just now. All he felt towards them was sincere gratitude, as they bought him both enough time and cover to collect his girlfriend and get her away from the villains. Even so, as he carried Reiko away and off to someplace safe to leave her until the villain attack was over, the two-toned boy still couldn't help but wonder about the blue flame villain, who he learned went by the simple name of Dabi.

This was the second time that villain had aimed to lure him away from the bulk of a massive fight. Sure, on both occasions Dabi kidnapped the cute ghost girl of class 1-B and used her as bait to lure Todoroki away, but other than knocking her out, Dabi didn't do anything to her. And Dabi likewise didn't have any intention with luring Todoroki away from the fighting other than to _just_ lure him away from the fighting.

Todoroki could not help but wonder why the blue flame villain was so invested in making sure he stayed away from large fights where there were very many combatants involved. Dabi did refer to the two-toned boy as 'Son of Endeavor' at least twice now, so did Todoroki's father, the current number one hero, have something to do with Dabi's invested interest? As much as he had wanted to ponder this mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a burrito, Todoroki had to put all of those thoughts to the side for now.

Getting Reiko, who was over his back unconscious and hurt, to safety was Todoroki's number one priority, even above his own safety and well-being.

* * *

Aizawa and Hizashi, who overlooked an area in the city where a massive bulk of the attacking villains were fighting any and all heroes who got in their way, paled when they saw the sheer scope of all that the forces of good had to face here today. "You young 'uns look like you both have seen ghosts," a gruff old man's voice called out from the side, making both Aizawa and Hizashi turn to see Gran Torino land next to them on the roof they all stood on. The retired pro hero landed next to Aizawa on his left, putting the underground hero in the middle.

"The city is being attacked by a force of over one-hundred thousand villains," Aizawa said as he gestured to the chaos in the streets below all of them. Gently shaking his head, Aizawa went on, "The sheer scope of this makes previous attacks like the monster attack on the city and the mercenary siege at U.A. both look like nothing in comparison! How the hell are we supposed to fight off so large of an invading force that has no problem with destroying and killing?!"

Hizashi, with a nervous and mildly resigned look on his face, nodded in agreement with his co-worker at U.A. "He's got a point. The heroes are vastly outnumbered here, and unlike our foes here, we typically refrain from taking lives and causing collateral damage."

All that Gran Torino gave as a response to the worries of the men before him was a gruff snort. "Obviously, you two hadn't checked your phones. All pro heroes have been sent an official message via text from the Hero Public Safety Commission." Curious, both Aizawa and Hizashi pulled out their phones, checking them for texts. Both men got the same message, and when they saw what it was, they both went wide-eyed with surprise;

OFFICIAL ORDER TO ALL PRO HEROES FROM THE HERO PUBLIC SAFTEY COMMISSION

KAIJU PROTOCOL IS IN EFFECT

"…So the commission thinks that this attack by the villains is so bad," Aizawa said in a grim tone as he and Hizashi put their phones away, "That they're ordering the Kaiju Protocol into effect." Giving Hizashi and Gran Torino a serious look, the underground hero said, "They don't care if we cause just as much if not more collateral damage as the attacking villains, or if we kill more villains than what we capture alive. The commission just want us to stop the attack as soon as possible, and by any means necessary."

Gran Torino nodded in agreement with Aizawa, the air he gave off being just as grim as that which Aizawa was giving off. "Given the sheer number of villains, all of which have no such restrictions, that we're having to face here, I can see why the Commission would give us the same orders that they gave during the monster attack on the city a while ago."

As heroes, none of them took pleasure in having to take lives, even those of villains. But given the scope of the attack that was currently going on, an attack that was clearly so bad that the Commission themselves had to order the Kaiju Protocol into effect in order to deal with it, none of the men on that rooftop could argue. Steeling their nerves, Aizawa and Hizashi both prepared themselves to do what they had to do.

Gran Torino, having seen more stuff than either of the younger men with him before either was born, was more willing to do what the commission had ordered, even though he had long since retired from hero work. However, once the underground hero and the cockatiel-haired hero had riled themselves up, they quickly jumped into the thick of things, right after Gran Torino. At the very least, they could back the retired pro hero up.

* * *

Elsewhere in the city, Izuku, still accompanied by Mirio and Lincoln, was fighting a good number of the fodder villains, knocking them out right and left with various Smashes. After all of the fodder villains in that area were knocked out, Izuku and the others let out tired breaths. "Just how many villains are we going to have to take out before this attack on the city stops?" Mirio asked aloud, sounding a mix of annoyed and mildly worried. Crossing his arms over his chest, the blonde boy of the Big Three said, "I swear, it's like there's-"

Mirio was cut off when he, as well as Izuku and Lincoln, all heard All Might's voice call out 'A PHONE CALL IS HERE! A PHONE CALL IS HERE!' Izuku, recognizing the specialized ring tone, reached for his phone, thinking that someone was calling him. However, Mirio also got his own phone out and answered it, making Izuku realize that someone was calling Mirio rather than him. Sheepishly, the green-eyed boy lowered his right arm back down as he, along with Lincoln, both watched Mirio speak to whoever it was that was calling him.

"Hello?" Mirio said, "…Oh, Nejire! Hoo boy, am I glad to hear from-" Mirio stopped short when he heard Nejire say something from the other end. Neither Izuku nor Lincoln were able to make out anything that the sole girl of the Big Three was saying, but both could easily tell that not only was she upset, but crying as well. "…I'm on my way right now," Mirio said in a firm, grim tone before ending the call and slipping his phone back into his pants.

Turning to face Izuku and Lincoln, Mirio said, "Sorry boys, but I need to get to the corner bakery located two blocks away from here. Nejire and Tamaki were confronting this one leading villain from the attacking force, some fellow who can make large amounts of ice, and Tamaki took a rather serious hit from the villain before said villain was chased off by that Mexican fellow from the Royal Woods High team, the one who wears a sombrero and a poncho. Said fellow has a wind attribute Sacred Heritage quirk."

"Oh, that's Bobby that you're talking about," Lincoln confirmed.

Nodding once in thanks to Lincoln for the identification, Mirio said, "I need to go see if the others in the Big Three with me are alright. Can I trust you two to be okay on your own?"

"You can count on us, Mirio-sempai," Izuku said with as much confidence as he could muster. Lincoln likewise gave the blonde boy a single assuring nod. Putting his faith in the younger heroes-in-training, Mirio turned around and ran in the direction of the bakery that Nejire and Tamaki were both located at, leaving Izuku and Lincoln be.

After Mirio was out of sight, Izuku and Lincoln both turned to face each other. "…I have no idea who that ice quirk fellow that Bobby chased off is," the white-haired boy began, "But I have no doubt that Bobby will soundly defeat him when he catches up to-"

Lincoln was cut off when he and Izuku both felt the ground around them shake. They got their answer for what was going on when they saw the pro heroes Mt. Lady (in her giant form), Mirko and Pixie-Bob come over to them. "Oh, thank goodness you two are okay!" Pixie-Bob said as she let off a relieved sigh, "After what the girls here and I heard about what happened to one of Ryukyu's interns, we're all fearing the worst for all of you kids!"

"By the way, you know what the Kaiju Protocol is, right?" Mirio asked, "It's the orders that were given during the monster attack a while ago that told us heroes that we had permission to use lethal force on the guys we were fighting. Well, all heroes have been given those orders again, so you kids shouldn't be afraid to take the lives of some of the villains if need be."

"Wait, what's the Kaiju Protocol?" Lincoln asked, looking confused and a bit worried.

Izuku, with a resigned look on his face, let out a mildly troubled sigh. "…It's something like an absolute last resort order issued by the Commission when something gets _really_ bad. Basically, with the Kaiju Protocol in effect, we have to stop whatever trouble that required the protocol in the first place by any means necessary, regardless of how much collateral damage we cause, or if we kill villains rather than take them in alive."

The trio of female pro heroes nodded in agreement with what Izuku said, confirming his explanation for the white-haired boy. "We already got word of the orders to the other Americans that came here with the party you're in since they're helping with dealing with the villain attack," Mirko said to Lincoln, "So if you hear of any of your sisters' classmates killing a villain or two, or destroying some property while trying to fight a villain, don't be surprised, and don't worry about repercussions."

Lincoln, silenced by what he had heard from the pro hero's mouth, looked like he was considering something for a while. After a few moments, he looked up at the three female pro heroes and simply said, "…All that tells me is that Aggro-sensei's twin sister Allison is going to be fully allowed off her leash."

"Well if letting that girl you speak of run wild on the villains will help save the day, then hey," Pixie-Bob said with a shrug, "More power to her."

"…But still…" Lincoln began, a concerned look on his face, "…The very idea of heroes killing anyone, even villains…"

Mt. Lady, still in her giant form, crossed her arms over her chest as she looked down at the white-haired boy as she wore a contemplative look on her face. "…You know, kid," the giant pro hero remarked, "For a budding hero who looks to have an assassin-theme going, you seem pretty hesitant to actually carry out an assassination."

Gesturing to the knife that he held, Lincoln explained, "I have the whole assassin theme because my training that I got was designed to best help me make use of my quirk. I cut someone with my knife here, lick their blood off the blade, and they become paralyzed." Looking up at the trio of female pro heroes, Lincoln said, "I've never killed anyone before. I prefer to incapacitate the villains I take on and turn them over to the police while they're helpless."

Mirko crossed her arms over her chest, giving Lincoln an approving nod in the process. "It's good that you have the mindset of refraining from killing whenever possible, and it is one of the key points that makes up a proper hero." With a gentle shake of her head, Mirko said, "However, it doesn't change the fact that we aren't really being given a choice here, what with the sheer number of villains that we're facing, along with the fact that should they win today, the villains will go on to-"

"Hang on a minute," Izuku interrupted suddenly, cutting Mirko off in the process. There was a mildly rattled look on the green-haired cinnamon roll's face as he turned to look at Lincoln. "You said that your quirk lets you paralyze someone by ingesting a bit of their blood," Izuku asked as he looked down a bit at Lincoln, "And that you got your assassin-esque training to help you make the most of it."

Lincoln nodded once in confirmation. "…My quirk is called Vampiric Stun," Lincoln explained, "Like I said, I can paralyze someone by ingesting a bit of their blood. The length of time varies based on the type of blood I consume compared to my own, as well as how much blood I consume." The white-haired boy looked at the blade of his knife, a look of mild trouble on his face. "The current minimum length of paralysis my quirk can inflict is six and a half minutes. According to some research that my little sister Lisa did on quirks, my quirk is functionally similar to the quirk of a villain that operated here in Japan some time ago."

"Yeah…" Izuku remarked with a bit of a nervous chuckle, his memories drifting back to a certain hero killer, "…I was just about to say."

"And that's all the more reason _why_ I'd rather avoid killing if at all possible," Lincoln said as he looked up at Izuku and the female pro heroes, "I don't want people thinking that I'm going to be America's Next Top Villain. I want to be a hero, to prove that whatever powers someone has doesn't have any say on if that person becomes good or bad."

Mt. Lady, Pixie-Bob and Mirko all exchanged looks with one another, silent agreements between the three of them. After a brief moment, the female pro heroes turned to face Izuku and Lincoln, their focus on the latter. "…If anything, the Kaiju Protocol was issued in order to make things easier for the heroes fighting do defend the city from the attacking villains," Mirko remarked, "There are still a good many heroes who, despite knowing full well that the Kaiju Protocol is in effect right now, they _still_ refrain from killing."

"Hasn't stopped some from going whole hog with the collateral damage, though," Pixie-Bob remarked with some snark, prompting Mt. Lady to roll her eyes in annoyance.

Mirko gestured to the two boys, saying, "We ourselves still want to try and defeat the villains that we fight here and bring them in alive, and with a quirk that can paralyze people, that will make captures a hell of a lot easier."

"I don't suppose you two boys would be willing to join the three of us in knocking out and capturing villains, would you?" Pixie-Bob asked Izuku and Lincoln as she gestured to herself, Mirko and Mt. Lady. Both of the boys accepted the offer, Izuku because he was relieved to have some pro heroes with him, and Lincoln because with the pros there to handle a lot of the heavy work, he would be able to avoid taking lives.

How could either of them turn down such an offer?

* * *

Kyoka, plugging her earphone jacks into the speakers on her boots, fired some sonic waves at a small group of villains, sending some reeling back while the others had to cover their ears due to the loud volume at which Kyoka was hitting them with. The rock music lover would never have been able to predict that her day would have ended up like this; she woke up earlier that morning with the dread of facing a team she felt she and her schoolmates stood no chance against, then before the first hit in said fight could actually be thrown, a massive villain attack on the city interrupts the whole shindig.

The interruption in question was a few hours ago at around nine-thirty in the morning, and looking at a large digital clock on the side of an office building, Kyoka saw that the time was now at around noon. She, as well as everyone else trying to defend the city from the villain attack, had been more or less fighting villain after villain nonstop for about two and a half hours by this point.

"I really hope those scary powerful guys on the Royal Woods High team is helping with fighting off all of these villains," Kyoka remarked aloud to herself as she sent a random fodder villain flying back with a particularly powerful and surprising sonic wave. Right after the villain that she had sent flying slammed into the side of an abandoned car, Kyoka was caught off guard when she was slammed in her own side by someone that sent her stumbling back. Once she had regained her footing, Kyoka saw who it was that had struck her.

When she did see who it was, Kyoka was confused; standing before her was a rather buff, well-toned man wearing a mostly purple costume that had green gloves, a small green cape, black boots and a black mask that only covered the upper half of his head. By all appearances, this guy should actually be a hero, and yet Kyoka was attacked by this guy. Before she could even get a single word out, the mystery man pointed dramatically at her.

"You are truly making a grave mistake here, young lady!" the hero (?) said as he began chastising Kyoka, "What we are trying to do here is to do away with all of the laws and whatnot that deny quirked individuals the basic right that all of them are born with! By standing in our way, you stand in the way of the greatest civil movement that-"

The mystery man that attacked Kyoka was cut off when he was struck by some streams of electricity, sending him stumbling back as he tried to recover. Looking over in the direction that the electrical attack came from, Kyoka saw her classmate Kaminari standing there, his fingertips aimed at the hero (?) who had attacked her. Kyoka was instantly flooded with relief to see Kaminari there, but that relief was soon mixed with concern and worry for the electric quirk boy's well-being.

Kaminari, as his electrical attack that he fired just now finished discharging, was panting hard with exhaustion. Furthermore, he had some scrapes on his hands and a cut under his right eye that will most likely require stitches (although not much and barely), and after he dropped his hands, he held his right one to cover the bottom area of the left side of his rib cage, wincing in pain as he did so.

Even so, Kaminari grinned through the pain as he looked at Kyoka. "Heh…" Kaminari chuckled despite the situation, "…I just can't leave you alone, can I?"

"Kaminari, you're clearly hurt!" Kyoka remarked, worry painted clear on her face, "We've got to get you out of-"

"Now you see?" the mystery man's voice called out, cutting Kyoka off and making both her and Kaminari turn to face him. Dusting himself off, the mystery man went on, "If it weren't for those laws that are in place right now, then people wouldn't get into trouble for the simple act of saving themselves from danger! But no, it's always 'can't do this, can't do that'." Pointing at the two U.A. students, the hero (?) said as he pulled out a book and held it so that the hero students could see it, "Chikara Yotsubashi had it down right when he started his preaching for the free usage of quirks!"

Scoffing in an annoyed tone, Kyoka snapped, "Oh stuff it!" The rock lover then fired a sonic wave at the mystery man, hitting him dead center and sending him flying back into another abandoned vehicle. As a side effect of her attack hitting the hero (?), Kyoka ended up destroying the book that he had pulled out as he spoke the name of that Chikara Yotsubashi in praise.

When he regained his bearings, the mystery man saw the ruined remains of his book flutter down from the air, its pages floating down, with some carried away in the breeze. His eyes widened in total, absolute shock when he saw what Kyoka's attack had done. "…That…" the mystery man began in a calm yet dangerous tone, "…Was an original printing copy of Meta Liberation War, the true, unaltered words first penned by Chikara Yotsubashi himself."

Kyoka's eyes widened with alarm and fear as the mystery man, practically frothing at the mouth with rage, surged forward and right towards her with a blinding speed, his left shoulder aimed so that he could shoulder ram her with every last bit of force that he could muster. "You've just destroyed a part of history!" the mystery man exclaimed, looking and sounding like he was now beyond the point of being reasoned with.

Overcome with fear, Kyoka could do nothing but raise her arms up to block at least some of the oncoming full-force assault that was now quickly sliding right towards. She closed her eyes tight, let out a frightened scream as she feared the inevitable attack that would strike her. She was indeed thrown back by a force, but it was not the mystery man that was sliding right towards her. Rather, she was thrown back by something, or rather some_one_, who shoved her from her right side rather than her front.

As she was sent reeling back by that shove from her side, Kyoka saw when she slowly opened her eyes that she had been shoved out of the path of the mystery man by Kaminari. Time itself seemed to have slowed down for her as Kyoka saw that, due to how he got her out of the way of that attack, that Kaminari was going to take the hit in her place, despite both his exhaustion and his clearly injured state; there was no telling how badly Kaminari would be hurt when he got hit by the mystery man's sliding force attack.

Kyoka also saw Kaminari look at her with an expression that told her that he didn't mind doing what he had just done, that he was okay with it. She could see his mouth move as he spoke to her as time was seemingly slowed for the both of them, and while Kyoka practically couldn't hear what the electric quirk boy was saying, she was able to tell what he was trying to say to her, as if he was right there next to her.

_Take care, Kyoka_.

Everything suddenly caught up with the present as the mystery man shoulder rammed right into Kaminari with such a forceful tackle that it knocked what air was in his lungs out of him. He also had Kaminari somewhat hooked over his shoulder, and the sliding attack actually didn't stop until the mystery man had rammed right into a nearby family vehicle, with Kaminari serving as a cushion to block most of the blow for the purple-clad man. The electric quirk boy coughed up a bit of blood in a pained gag as he was slammed right into the side of that van, the sheer pain that was washing over him overriding everything else.

After he had finally come to a stop, the mystery man stumbled back and saw that he had rammed into some boy with yellow hair instead of the girl who destroyed his original print copy of Meta Liberation War. As he turned around to look for the girl that had drawn his ire, the mystery man was struck by a sonic wave that sounded like a banshee's scream. Said attack came flying out from Kyoka's right side, making her turn to see who it was that had attacked the man that just brutally rammed Kaminari into the side of a van.

To her surprise, Kyoka saw that she was assisted by that blonde girl with a streak of blue in her hair from the Royal Woods High team. What caught the rock lover's attention about this girl was that her skin looked rather pale, almost sheet white. She also panted hard in exhaustion as she looked at Kyoka.

"(Do you know enough English to understand what I'm saying?)" the pale blonde girl asked Kyoka in English, letting out a tired breath every so often, as if she had just finished giving some great physical effort of some kind.

Nodding twice, Kyoka said, "(I know enough, yes. You're that one girl on Royal Wood's team, right?)" Stepping forward, Kyoka asked, "(What happened to you? Why do you look a lot paler than you did earlier this morning when the team battle event was interrupted?)"

Gently shaking her head, the pale blonde girl said, "(I'll explain later. For now, we have to-")

"How dare you!" the purple clad man exclaimed in Japanese, picking himself up from where the pale blonde girl's attack had thrown him into a sedan. Pointing dramatically at the two girls, the mystery man declared, "I shan't be letting either of you get away with-"

The mystery man ended up getting cut off when Kyoka and the pale blonde girl both fired their respective sonic wave attacks at him, both attacks striking him dead on, and sending him flying back with such force that he ended up crashing through the front window of a store front, getting knocked unconscious for his troubles. With the mystery man defeated, the pale blonde girl was able to turn back and give her attention to Kyoka. "(…Like I was trying to say before that asshat interrupted me,)" the pale blonde girl said, "(We have got to get out of here!)"

"(But Kaminari-)" Kyoka tried to say, but before she could get one more word out she was taken by her right hand by the pale blonde girl, who proceeded to drag her away from the area. All the while she could still see where he laid on the ground next to the family vehicle he was rammed into, Kyoka did not once take her eyes off of Kaminari, who laid front-side down on the ground, his expression tired with his eyes only half-open as a slight trickle of blood slowly oozed from his mouth.

That sight, the sight of seeing the guy who only wanted something special with her lay so eerily still on the ground, was an image that was burned into Kyoka's mind, an image that she had no doubt she would ever be forgetting.

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER FORTY

Author's notes;

For those of you who are familiar with 'The Loud House', another series that I write stories for, you should recognize the girl who saved Kyoka near the end of this chapter as Sam Sharp, the girl who Luna Loud has feelings for. Kyoka also made a note of how Sam looked a hell of a lot paler when she rescued her than she did earlier during the team battle event that was interrupted. Sam's paleness will be explained later.

Speaking of others, I have something big planned for chapter forty-three; I can't quite say what it is, but I can say that it'll be the reason why so many others from outside of BNHA are showing up to help Izuku and the other heroes fight off the Paranormal Liberation Front. The ongoing villain siege is by no means ready to be drawn to a close just yet, mostly because Shigaraki has yet to show up to play his part in the festivities.

…What? You didn't think something like this involving the Front could be done, and the big boss of the Front himself not take any part, did you?


	41. Chapter 41

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter forty-one: Villain Siege part three- Riot Forever

"Grr…" a fodder villain in the Paranormal Liberation Front growled in annoyance as he fought who he assumed was someone with a transformation quirk that allowed them to turn into a humanoid wolf. The fodder villain swung his right fist at the humanoid wolf person in a strong right hook, only to go wide-eyed with shock when his attack was easily caught, and with such a high speed to boot.

The humanoid wolf person, wearing a casual teenager's outfit, and sporting a wild mane of black hair held back with a red band, gave a wry look of amusement as he looked at the fodder villain. "…Yeah, that isn't going to work on me, I'm afraid," the humanoid wolf explained as he threw the fodder villain back, making him stumble a bit before he regained his footing.

The fodder villain couldn't believe who he was fighting; this fellow with the wolf transformation quirk is faster, stronger and more resilient than most anyone that the fodder villain himself had ever met in the Front. "Just who the hell are you?!" the fodder villain exclaimed at his opponent, "The hell sort of abilities does your wolf transformation quirk give you?!"

"Quirk?" the humanoid wolf repeated in a confused tone, "I don't have a quirk. Never did." Seeing the look of shocked, confused surprised on the fodder villain's face, the humanoid wolf asked, "What made you think that-" Suddenly, the humanoid wolf stopped, a look of realization on his face. Suddenly, the humanoid wolf burst out laughing. "Oh shit! I get it now!" exclaimed the humanoid wolf as he pointed at the fodder villain, "You think that I'm a human with one of those fancy superpowers, don't you?!"

The fodder villain, his eyes widening more as he took several steps back, said, "H…Human?"

Crouching down into a stance that suggested he was going to take a sprinting dash at the fodder villain, the humanoid wolf said, "I think that I ought to introduce myself. The name's Ginei Morioka, and I am _not_ a human." Suddenly, and with a speed that would make many speed quirk users blush, Ginei rushed at the fodder villain, slamming right into his front with a right shoulder ram that sent him flying until he slammed into the brick side of a store front, hitting the back of his head hard enough to crack it and result in death. As the fodder villain's lifeless form slid onto the ground, Ginei, as he stood up straight and looked down at the villain's remains, gave the foul man a disgusted sneer.

"I'm a _werewolf_."

"Oi, Ginei!" a male voice called out to the werewolf, making him turn to see a Crow Tengu slug another fodder villain in the face and dropping that man to the ground. Looking over to Ginei, the Crow Tengu said, "Where the hell are the other guys?"

"Tsukune's human friends from middle school are all at his place safe, Haiji," Ginei called over to the Crow Tengu, apparently named Haiji, "The fighting is all concentrated in the city here, so we don't have to worry about folks in the residential areas! As for Tsukune, Fangfang, Draco and the girls, all of them are scattered somewhere in the city!"

Haiji nodded grimily in understanding before he turned his attention to the human villains that were attacking the city. "You know," Haiji called back, "I'm surprised rather that our world's government has no problem with us attacking and fighting humans like this!"

Ginei, as he grunted while knocking out another human fodder villain, replied, "Well after the humans helped our world deal with that attack that Hirajo launched a while ago, it's only fair that we help them when the villains of their race try to start something!" Jabbing his right elbow to behind him, Ginei slammed said elbow right onto the tip of the nose of one of the fodder villains that was attacking the city. After that villain dropped, Ginei said, "Besides, a lot of those monster world laws are being amended to better serve the problems that all peoples, not just us, are in the middle of-"

The werewolf was cut off when both he and Haiji heard a loud, draconic roar sound out from overhead. Looking up, the two monster teens saw a gigantic red dragon fly overhead at it fired its fire breath at a large group of fodder villains. Even those in that group of fodder villains that had some degree of resistance to fire-based assault were quickly downed by the sheer raw force of dragon's fire.

The dragon then landed on the ground near Ginei and Haiji as its form shifted and shrunk, eventually turning into Ginei and Haiji's friend Draco, albeit with the horns, tail, hands, feet, claws and wings from his dragon form (proportionally correct for his human-sized appearance). "…At first, I thought that the city was being attacked by remnants of Hirajo's horde," Draco said in a grim tone, his expression matching it, "But not once did I see any of the attacking foes turn into some manner of warmonger monster." Looking at his classmates, Draco said with a wry eyebrow arched, "I don't suppose that I could get an explanation here, please?"

"All of the bad guys attacking the city are human villains that all have some sort of special powers that the humans have taken to calling quirks," Ginei explained, "Each quirk is different from human to human, so the powers that you'll see will vary wildly."

Draco, with a confused look on his face, remarked, "Quirks?" Gently shaking his head, the dragon in human form said, "Wow. And here I thought that-"

"Get those would-be heroes, boys!" a male voice called out right before a large group yelled out war cries, cutting Draco off and making him, Ginei and Haiji turn to see a large group of the human fodder villains rush at them. Standing near the back of the crowd was a well-dressed man wearing a black business suit blazer over a white dress shirt, pants that matched the blazer, a black tie, shiny black men's dress shoes, and a pair of sunglasses.

Ginei and his friends all saw the villain standing in the back, with Ginei wincing a bit in discomfort. "Grr…" the werewolf growled, "…That well-dressed fellow in the back. He's got some sort of pulse thing coming from him that's making my ears ring. I think he has some sort of voice quirk."

"And from the looks of it," Haiji said as he and his friends saw all of the fodder villains rush at them, "That power must be having some sort of influence on all of these-" Haiji was cut off when Draco, still maintaining his pseudo-form, rushed right towards the well-dressed villain in the back of the crowd, his right hand pulled back, the black claws and red scales shining with the light that reflected off of them.

The well-dressed villain, seeing Draco rush at him, moved to try to get away, but he barely took a step back before Draco's clawed right hand struck true, ripping right into his ribcage and piercing out of his back. In Draco's clawed, bloodied draconic hand was the villain's still beating heart, sputtering out a few last bits of blood as Draco yanked his hand and arm right out of the well-dressed villain that he had just killed.

As the well-dressed villain's lifeless body dropped to the ground in a bloody heap, the influence that his quirk had on the fodder villains that were charging at Ginei and Haiji wore off, leaving a good many of them confused enough to stop charging at the two monster teens. It wasn't until one of the fodder villains turned around and saw that Draco had done that all of the villains got an answer for what happened to their power up.

"That kid just killed Trumpet!" exclaimed the first fodder villain who saw what Draco had done, "He just killed one of the Front's lieutenants!"

Draco, with an indifferent look on his face as he saw that all of the fodder villains were now charging at him, casually dropped Trumpet's heart on the ground. "…Oh, so I just claimed the life of one of your army's big wigs, huh?" Draco growled. Transforming back into his true dragon form, Draco yelled, "Maybe I'll go on a villain lieutenant hunt, then! Doesn't that sound like a fun way to spend the day to you, human villains?!"

All of the fodder villains were surprised to see Trumpet's killer suddenly turn into a large red dragon, and barely any of them reacted in time to avoid the massive tail swipe attack that heavily injured many of the villains, knocked some of them out, and even straight up killed a few of them. Those very lucky few that were able to avoid getting hit were scattered in that area, and were made easy pickings for Ginei and Haiji.

The forces of the Paranormal Liberation Front were by no means expecting anything out of _monster kind_ during their siege on the city this day.

* * *

Izuku and Lincoln, having been joined by the female pro heroes Mt. Lady, Mirko and Pixie-Bob, continued to fight any and all villains that they came across. With the white-haired boy's quirk that (to Izuku) was eerily similar to that of a certain hero killer's quirk, many of the villains were quickly incapacitated, either being taken care of right there and then or made easy pickings for the pro heroes, who knocked them out.

After the pro heroes, Izuku and Lincoln had just cleared out another street by defeating all of the fodder villains that they found there, Mt. Lady let out a tired, mildly resigned breath. "Hot damn, will there be any end to all of these villains?!"

"You heard the report," Mirko said as she turned to face Mt. Lady while tying up a villain that Lincoln had paralyzed, "There are at least one-hundred thousand villains in the force that's in the middle of attacking the city right now. And that number is estimated to be _just_ the grunt force." With a gentle shake of her head, Mirko went on, "There's no telling how many are in leader roles in the force of villains, nor can we-"

The rabbit hero was cut off when a force of fodder villains turned a corner and, spotting her and the other heroes, immediately rushed in to take them on, as well as potentially free some of their captured allies. "Well shit," Mirko said as she and the others all assumed battle stances, prepared to meet the large group of villains head on, "It looks like we're up for another ballgame here, guys. Well, let's show them why-"

Mirko found herself cut off a second time when ice element attacks rushed out from behind where she, Mt. Lady, Pixie-Bob, Izuku and Lincoln all stood, going on to hit the large mass of fodder villains and freezing them all up in a large hunk of ice. "Todoroki?" Izuku said in a surprised tone as he turned around to see who he thought was going to be his friend and classmate over at U.A.

Instead, he and the others saw two teenagers with silvery purplish hair and similarly colored eyes. The girl of the pair wore her hair long, and she wore a white sweatshirt with dark-colored long sleeves, the top of a dark-colored tank-top could be seen coming out of the top of the sweatshirt, the skirt of the girl's uniform from some school, a pair of purple stripped stockings, a pair of white shoes, a belt that was tied to her left leg for some reason and rounding off her wardrobe was a simple yellow pendant.

As for the boy, his hair was in a medium-long scruff, and he wore a far simpler outfit consisting of a baggy long-sleeved shirt over a baggy t-shirt, a baggy pair of cargo pants held up with a belt, and a pair of somewhat clunky looking sneakers. Izuku could tell that both of these teens had to be connected to each other in some way, if their matching hair and eye colors were any sign that indicated that.

"Sorry if Tsukune and I butted into business that wasn't ours," the girl of the pair said, "But you guys looked like you needed some help."

"No, we don't mind at all," Pixie-Bob remarked, "By the way, those are some awesome ice manipulation quirks that you two just used." Gesturing to the two teens, Pixie-Bob continued, "Are you both from a family with a strong ice quirk line in it, or something?"

Both icy teens looked at Pixie-Bob with confused looks on their faces. "…Quirks?" the boy of the pair said, "Oh, no. Neither Mizore nor I have quirks. The both of us are snow fairies, a race of monster with natural cryomancy powers." With a mildly embarrassed look on his face, the boy added, "Although I technically didn't start out as a snow fairy…"

Gently shaking her head, Mirko said, "I don't care if you're human or monster or Hamon the fucking Monkey God." Pointing at the teens, the rabbit hero continued, "If the two of you are both able and willing to help out with fighting the villains, then we'll gladly take that help!"

"What did you kids say your names were again?" Mt. Lady asked.

"I'm Mizore, and this is Tsukune," the girl of the pair explained as she gestured to herself and her companion in that order, "Other monster friends of ours from Azu-Daioh High are also helping with fighting off all of these human villains."

Izuku and the female pro heroes nodded in understanding; they all remembered when they had to help repel the monster attack from a while ago in order to assist the monster world government, and now it seemed that said government is returning the favor to humanity. Only Lincoln looked lost on what was going on, but he was rolling with things as they came.

After Tsukune and Mizore teamed up with the quirked humans, Pixie-Bob said, "Okay, we're going to have to split up into groups in order to cover more ground. The girls will all go in one group while the boys go in another."

"Sounds fair," Izuku replied with a nod before he gestured for Lincoln and Tsukune to follow him off to find and stop more villains. "Good luck everyone, and try to stay safe!" the green-eyed boy called back as he and the boys left the girls behind. As he ran with Tsukune and Lincoln, Izuku thought that his party was a bit odd; one was a quirked boy from the States, and the other was a quirkless teen whose monster biology granted him powers anyway.

…Then again, there _have_ been crazier things. And Izuku had a dreading feeling that things would be getting crazier still over the rest of today.

* * *

Itsuka, with her classmates Pony and Kinoko following her, were running to find someplace safe from the villain attack that was currently engulfing the whole of the city. The half-American girl was carrying an injured and knocked out Yosetsu on her back as she and the other two girls were rushing to find someplace safe to leave him. A pained moan from Yosetsu spurred the trio of 1-B girls on further, all of them worried for their male classmate.

"Girls, I'm worried Yosetsu may not make it," Pony remarked, her tone and expression conveying worry, "He very badly hurt."

Itsuka, with a look of fierce determination on her face, declared, "Like hell we're letting Yosetsu die here! He still needs to confess to Momo, and I'll be damn if I let one of the cutest potential couples in U.A.'s history not become a thing!"

"Itsuka," Pony began in a mildly confused and dumbfounded tone, "I'm glad you want Yosetsu to be okay, but I think that you have priorities really mixed-"

Pony was cut off when she and her classmates heard someone yell down at them. "Oh, and what do we have here but a small group of fledgling heroes in need of a good culling?" The trio of 1-B girls looked up and saw a large, well-fed man who was easily seven feet tall. The man, wearing only pants and a pair of sandals, stood on the edge of a roof in the area of the city that they were all in. He was fully bald, and looked rather massively fat, which made him standing on that roof without said roof going out under the strain of his weight all the more impressive. Pounding a fist into his hand, the large fat man said, "I bet the boss will like it if I kill some fledgling heroes for him!"

The girls were all scared, too stunned to move. The large villain looked over the three girls, then seemingly settled on Kinoko. "I think that I'll start with brunette bob cut here!" the large villain exclaimed in ecstatic, sadistic glee as he jumped from the roof and flew right at Kinoko, making her scream in fright as she and her friends were too rattled by the sudden appearance of the large, dangerous villain. With his big, meaty right fist pulled back, the large fat villain was prepared to deal a devastating strike to Kinoko's small, slender petite form.

…

"RED RIOT UNBREAKABLE!"

Right before his fist could break the mushroom girl, the large fat villain was stopped when his strike ended up ramming right into something indescribably hard, as well as rugged in some places. Pulling his fist back, the large fat villain saw a monstrous-looking teen boy that looked to be made entirely of a hard, rugged substance, right down to his eyes, eyes that looked angrily at the large fat villain. "…Attacking girls who were trying to run away?" the rugged teen snarled as he glared up at the large fat villain, "That's the most un-manly thing that I can think of!"

"Kirishima!" Itsuka exclaimed as she and her classmates realized who it was that had just saved Kinoko from getting hit by the villain's attack. What Itsuka liked particularly about Kirishima's action just now was that he intercepted an attack aimed at Kinoko specifically. Gently shaking her head, the class 1-B rep said, "We need to get out of here! Yosetsu here is hurt really badly!"

"Did this asshat wreck Yosetsu?" Kirishima asked while jerking a thumb at the large fat villain.

Pony gently shook her head in the negative. "Yosetsu hurt elsewhere. We try to find safe place for him now."

Nodding once in understanding, Kirishima said, "Alright, sounds fair." Turning around to face the large fat villain, Kirishima said to the girls behind him, "You three take Yosetsu and get him out of here! I'll tango with this lard load to buy you time!"

"He looks scary strong, Eijiro!" Kinoko said, practically crying out of worry for the boy who had stolen her heart, "What if-"

"I still owe you an answer, don't I?"

Kinoko, as well as the other girls, all stopped short when the hardening quirk boy interrupted the mushroom girl with his response. Kirishima cracked his neck a bit, as if to loosen himself up a bit. "…There's no way that I'm going down to Fat Gum's evil clone here," Kirishima said, "Not until I give you my answer, Kinoko." Kirishima gestured to the far end of the street everyone was on as he said, "Now go!"

The girls, not arguing with Kirishima, proceeded to run away to get Yosetsu to safety. The large fat villain tried to go for the students of 1-B, but Kirishima struck him square in the gut with a Red Gauntlet, sending him stumbling back by about seven feet or so before he regained his sense of balance. The hardening quirk boy gave the large fat villain an amused sneer, swiping against the right side of his nose with his right thumb.

"Heh…what did I say? Attacking girls who are trying to run away is hella un-manly."

* * *

Although it was just the three of them on their own, Izuku, Lincoln and Tsukune felt confident that, so long as they stuck with smaller groups on the edge of the warzone rather than go for large swaths of enemies in the thick of things, they would be able to get out of things alive when the city-wide villain attack finally came to an end. After Lincoln had paralyzed his fifty-seventh villain in the current hour and made said woman (yes, it was a female villain) drop to the ground, Izuku let out a mildly exhausted moan.

"Hey, umm…Izuku, was it?" Tsukune asked as he looked over to the green-haired cinnamon roll, having heard his tired moan. Izuku looked over to the human-turned-snow fairy, giving him his attention. "Are you okay?"

Izuku waved a hand in a mildly dismissive gesture. "I'm just really tired is all," Izuku replied, "I lost track of how many villains that I've had a hand in defeating so far today."

Lincoln, after wiping excess blood from his bowie knife off on the sleeve of a paralyzed villain that was laying on the ground, stood back up, returned the knife to its sheath on the left side of his belt. "And to think, there are over one-hundred _thousand_ villains in the force that's attacking the city right now." The white-haired boy gave both teens a curious, mildly worried look. "Are there even enough heroes to deal with that many villains?"

Gently shaking his head, Izuku replied, "I don't know the exact number of pro heroes out there, but I'm fairly certain that the attacking force of villains outnumbers the total number of pro heroes in Japan. The police forces here can help shore up the numbers a bit, but since most of the men in the nation's police forces are quirkless, they're more a liability to the heroes' efforts to stop the villains than anything else."

"Well, at least the heroes don't have to deal with the large army of villains alone," Tsukune said, getting both Izuku and Lincoln to turn to face him. Nodding once in assured confidence, Tsukune went on, "When the hordes of Hirajo attacked the city a while ago, in their bid to start their efforts to take over the monster world and kill off my girlfriend's family, the heroes were one of the allies that helped monster kind repel and defeat that threat." Crossing his arms over his chest, the Aono boy gave Izuku a knowing look. "…And now it's monster kind's turn to help out the heroes in their time of-"

The human-turned-snow fairy was cut off when he, as well as Izuku and Lincoln, all heard a loud shout cry out, making all of them turn to see a villain that obviously had a transformation quirk, given that he was now a humanoid rhinoceros beetle the size of a (fairly small, but still pretty big compared to normal humans) RV, and that said villain was charging right at the trio of boys. The three of them all assumed defensive combat stances, ready to face this newest threat and defeat him, just as they've done with countless fodder villains before him.

"FIRE DRAGON'S ROAR!" A shout called out, and before anyone could react, the humanoid rhinoceros beetle villain was struck by a jet-stream of red flames that engulfed him completely, making him cry out in pain as he was burned by the scarlet inferno surrounding him. Izuku, Lincoln and Tsukune all took pause when they saw the flames hit and engulf the villain that the three of them almost had to tango with, had it not been for whoever threw that fire at him. The boys were all alerted by the presence of someone joining them when Izuku, turning to see who it was, heard someone land next to him on his right.

The green-eyed boy saw someone who looked to be about his age, maybe a year or two older; he had medium-long, salmon-pink spiky hair, and he wore a waistcoat with one long sleeve on one side and was sleeveless on the other, a pair of pants that ended around the shins, a pair of sandals, and a rather interesting scarf, white with fringes at the end, and it was patterned to look as if it was made of scales. On the shoulder of the arm that was exposed, the pink-haired boy had a red tattoo whose shape Izuku could not quite begin to describe.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his right wrist, the pink-haired guy said, "You all here need a hand fighting all of these bad guys? At least until we can meet up with some of my guild mates from Fairy Tail!"

"That's the mage's guild located in Magnolia Town, Fiore," Tsukune began in a somewhat cautious tone, "And not a now-defunct group of evil monsters from the monster world, right?"

The pink-haired fire-user turned to face Tsukune. "…We use the t-a-i-l spelling, not the t-a-l-e spelling." Turning to face forward where the humanoid rhinoceros beetle villain was now lying on the ground in his regular human form, the pink-haired fire user added, "Relax, my guild mates and I are part of the good guys here." He straightened up a bit, crossed his arms over his chest as he gave Izuku, Tsukune and Lincoln a wry, amused grin. "…The name's Natsu Dragneel. I don't suppose you guys would appreciate the help of a Dragon Slayer mage, would you?"

"Yes, please," Lincoln said as he bowed his head appreciatively to the Fire Dragon Slayer mage, who he was actually familiar with. Izuku and Tsukune, both also thankful to have been joined by another ally, likewise said to Natsu that he was more than welcomed to join them.

Natsu was amused by how welcoming the guys he just saved were being of him. "Well then, let's give these villainous assholes a Fairy Tail-style greeting!" Natsu proclaimed as he banged his fists together, making embers of flame emanate from them, "All of this fighting has given me a serious fire in my belly!" Izuku and the others nodded in agreement with Natsu and, after he joined their group, they all ran off to search for more fodder villains on the outskirts of the bulk of the fighting to take out.

As the boys all ran, Tsukune remarked to Natsu, "You know, I don't know what it is about your voice, but I think it sounds pretty cool."

Natsu, amused by the complement, gave a smirk. "…I was actually going to say the same about you."

* * *

The large fat villain was socked square in the middle of his face by the hardened, rugged fist of Kirishima as their fight was winding down. By that point, Kirishima's Red Riot Unbreakable had run out of its time limit, and the hardening quirk boy had to draw on what reserves of strength and energy he had left to maintain his regular level of hardness. Even so, that punch to the large fat villain's face was enough to score the knock out. The large fat villain, having been knocked unconscious, fell over backwards, landing face up on the ground.

His foe finally defeated, Kirishima relaxed his quirk, returning to normal. His usual red spikes were down, with his hairstyle now resembling how he had it in middle school aside from the red coloring. Kirishima was even panting hard in exhaustion, a sign of how much of his all he had just given in his efforts to defeat who he's taken to calling 'Fat Gum's evil clone'. The sleeves of his hero costume were torn up and scattered, with his outfit now resembling what it looked like prior to the inclusion of the sleeves.

Kirishima was sweating a bit, and he was just about close to passing out. Even so, he felt a good rush of exhilaration. After all, he had just defeated a powerful villain, and on his own to boot. With what energy he had left, Kirishima pumped a fist into the air in a gesture of victory, letting out a victory cry that was more a breath of exhaustion. This victory meant a lot to Kirishima, and not just because this win helped him overcome some of his insecurities from his past.

By holding off the large fat villain, Kirishima allowed Itsuka, Pony and Kinoko to get away with their injured classmate Yosetsu. Effectively, the hardening quirk boy had just saved four people, one of which is the girl who, though not by her own doing, had confessed that she was in love with him. Kirishima still hadn't given Kinoko his answer, but by no means is said action out of malice; on the contrary, the red-haired boy, who was very concerned about ever finding a girl who would like him, was ecstatic to learn that there was, in fact, a girl who was in love with him. But still, due to the insecurities that he felt, Kirishima wanted to prove, more to himself than anyone else, that he was worthy of a girl being in love with him.

"…I think that this will work," Kirishima said to himself as he looked to where the villain he defeated on his own laid unconscious on the ground, "Defeating an asshat like this evil clone of Fat Gum's on my own should be enough to-"

*HTHWACK*

Kirishima was cut off mid-sentence when he was struck from behind by a large, strong arm that sent him slamming into the side of a family vehicle. Barely able to regain his bearings, Kirishima saw a large, pitch black, hulking monster of a villain, surprisingly coming out of what looked to be a custom, three-wheeled wheelchair of some kind. Kirishima's left eye was twitching a bit out of a mix of shock and exhaustion, but his right eye widened as much as possible as this new guy, Re-Destro (though Kirishima did not know who he was) just showed up.

"Well now, what do we have here?" the large villain remarked in sly, sinister amusement as he sneered down at the exhausted Kirishima, "A fledgling hero that's worn out after fighting so many of the proud men that serve under the Paranormal Liberation Front's esteemed supreme commander?" Pulling his large, black right fist back, Re-Destro exclaimed in a near hysteric manner, "I've never been one to turn down easy pickings!"

The large fist collided into Kirishima's right side, pushing him into the family vehicle he still stood next to. After Re-Destro pulled his fist back, he gave the helpless hero-in-training a potent backhanded smack with his right hand, sending Kirishima flying back until his back slammed into another family vehicle, this one an army-style van. After Kirishima fell away from that army style van, he was swatted by Re-Destro's right hand, sending him smacking right into the ground as the air was knocked from his lungs, the pain from both his exhaustion and his many injuries making him gasp for what little air he could get.

But come that air would not, as while Re-Destro laughed triumphantly at the easy, honorless win he had just scored while walking away, Kirishima, who laid front-side down on the ground, felt all of his being slowing down. His vision was fading to black as he struggled to so much as keep his eyes open. While he could still think, Kirishima thought of how he was glad that he had bought enough time for Itsuka, Pony and Kinoko to get away with the injured Yosetsu; if buying time for them to escape was not only heroic but manly as well, then Kirishima had no idea what would qualify in that regard.

But at the same time, the hardening quirk boy felt great regret when he thought of class 1-B's resident mushroom girl, the girl whose heart he had unknowingly stolen. "…_Heh_…_sorry about this_, _Kinoko_…" Kirishima thought somberly as his breathing, his pulse slowed down to a crawl, "…_Looks like I won_'_t be able to give you my answer_ _after all_…" With one last bit of thought, Kirishima imagined sharing a kiss with the mushroom girl as he held her gently in his arms. It was a thought that gave the hardening quirk boy some measure of comfort.

It was Kirishima's last comfort before all faded to black.

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

Author's notes;

Notice how Izuku's current party is at four? Yeah, his group will be joined by one more person during the events of the next chapter. In the chapter after that, which should be chapter forty-three, Izuku and his group will have their big showdown against the very villain who had instigated the attack on the city in the first place; if you paid attention to chapter thirty-eight, as well as bits that are to come, then you will know who Izuku's party will end up facing in the climatic fight of this arc.

But _before_ said climatic fight can take place, the fifth and final member of the planned party has to show up. There's also a few bits of fighting between heroes and (named) villains that I want to do as well, as well as introduce/hint at the reason _why_ I had previously advised keeping an eye on Sam's paleness that cropped up in the previous chapter.


	42. Chapter 42

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter forty-two: Villain Siege part four- Vanquished Villains

"(We have to get out of here!)" Sam Sharp yelled in English as she, accompanied by Kyoka, ran through a somewhat wrecked ten story office building's ground floor, having entered in the hopes of being able to take a short cut to get away from some villains that they were too outnumbered to take on at that moment. The two teenage girls were met up by Luna Loud who not only was on the Royal Woods High team same as Sam, but was also Sam's girlfriend.

The trio of teen girls found another door on the office building's ground floor and ran through that, escaping to the other side from where they had entered. Kyoka and the American girls all panted hard after their sprint through the office building. Sam panted particularly hard, and Kyoka's attention was drawn back to the fact that Sam was a lot paler in the skin than she was when the U.A. team spotted her back during the team battle event that was interrupted before said fight could have actually taken place.

Since the three of them were moderately safe it seemed, Kyoka gestured to the pale blonde girl, getting both her and Luna's attention. "(…We really ought to find a safe place to recuperate,)" Kyoka remarked, "(I don't know what it is about this surprise paleness of yours, but whatever it is, I think you ought to rest it off.)"

Sam, with an understanding look on her face, nodded once in agreement. "(…Yeah, that's what Aggro told me after Luna got him to-)"

"Still you all fight against the worthy cause of free quirk usage?!" a familiar male voice called out in Japanese, making the trio of teen girls turn to look to see the purple-clad hero (?) who body slammed Kaminari into a vehicle earlier coming up to confront them.

"(Shit!)" Kyoka snarled as she, Luna and Sam were confronted by the purple clad man, "(This asshat is the fucker who wrecked Kaminari!)" All three of the teen girls assumed defensive combat stances, with Luna standing in front of both sonic wave girls as she bulked up into her muscular form.

The purple-clad hero (?) gently shook his head, as if he were disappointed. "Truly this nation is on the verge of being lost if even the youth staunchly defend the very oppressive laws that Chikara Yotsubashi fought to overthrow in the name of freedom." Pulling his right fist back, the mystery man began to quickly slide forward towards Kyoka and the American girls. "As much as this pains me to do so, you girls-"

"(Planes Pikes!)"

Suddenly, and to the surprise of all in that area, the purple clad hero (?) most of all, two cone-shaped pillars of earthen material, all radiating a brilliant golden aura so deeply concentrated that Kyoka thought them to be made of real solid gold, shot out from the earth and impaled the mystery man, one through his stomach and one through his chest. A gushing blob of blood puked out from the mystery man's mouth as he coughed out one his last breaths.

The pillars were pulled back and faded back into the ground, allowing the purple clad hero (?) to fall front-side down onto the ground. As Kyoka and the American girls stood there, they were met up by Amy Ace, who still had her golden elemental cloak up. Luna and Sam, recognizing their friend and teammate on the Royal Woods High team, turned to greet her. Kyoka, seeing the earth attribute Sacred Heritage quirk user as well, turned to face Amy too.

"(Thanks for the save, Amy,)" Luna greeted while gesturing to were the purple-clad man's body laid eerily still on the ground in a pool of warm life-crimson.

"(Well it's not like I can just stand by while I see someone trying to attack you girls,)" Amy replied. She put her left hand on her waist as her right hand held onto her staff. "(I don't suppose you girls would mind it too much if I were to join up with you, would you?)"

Kyoka nodded briskly in a manner to show how eager she was to have someone at Amy's level by her side during the villain attack. "(Yes, please join us,)" the rock lover remarked, "(We can use all the help we can get.)" Gesturing to Sam, Kyoka continued, "(Maybe you'll be able to stick around while these two explain to me why the blonde one here looks as pale as she does. I think she was saying something about that Aggro guy before we were interrupted by that man lying on the ground.)"

Amy, her interest piqued, turned to regard Sam specifically and give her a good look. Right away, Amy's eyes widened when she took note of how pale the blonde haired girl looked. "(Oh my goodness, Sam,)" Amy began in a concerned tone, "(You were killed earlier? What are you doing up and about? You need to rest now!)"

Sam gave a helpless shrug. "(Well hey, with all that's going on right now, I don't think I can exactly afford to heed the advice that you and Aggro both have-)"

"(Wait, wait, wait, hold on a minute there,)" Kyoka said in a mildly skeptical tone, interrupting the American girls in the process. Focusing on Sam, Kyoka said, "(You were _killed_ earlier?)" After the blonde girl gave a single confirming nod, Kyoka shook her head in disbelief as she crossed her arms over her chest. "(Yeah, I'm finding that very hard to believe.)"

Sam gave a helpless, mildly embarrassed chuckle. "(Heh, yeah. Well, here's the thing.)"

* * *

"(El Muerte!)" Bobby Santiago, still protected by his cloak of golden winds, exclaimed in a grim, angry tone as he threw an uppercut at Geten, an ice quirk villain that he had been chasing ever since he saw the villain attack some U.A. students near a bakery. The uppercut was by no means close enough to actually strike Geten in the jaw, but that was not necessary as Bobby only needed to make the motion of an uppercut in order to conjure his _true_ technique that he was going to strike the ice quirk villain with.

The act of that uppercut conjured a mini-tornado, about twice as tall as the average male adult human, so still well under the size of an actual tornado. The winds of that tornado, however, were made of the golden winds associated with Bobby's quirk. The golden coloration of that attack was so deeply concentrated that to Geten it looked like the tornado that was coming his way was made of actual solid gold.

The golden mini-tornado flew right at the ice quirk villain, absorbing him into itself, resulting in Geten being tossed around inside of the tornado, thrown around like a helpless rag doll as the fierce winds tore into Geten's very person at sharp, searing speeds. His pained cries and gurgled gasps were mostly drowned out by the sheer volume at which the winds of Bobby's quirk blew. Eventually, after about ten or so seconds, the winds of the mini-tornado died down, the tornado itself dissipating.

The instant that happened, Geten's torn, bloodied body fell with a sickening thud to the ground, landing front-side down. Nothing had been sliced off of him, but there were a good number of rather terrible lacerations all over the ice quirk villain's body. Bobby's eyes narrowed grimly as he looked at where the villain had fallen, before he turned around to see the brown ponytailed girl on the Royal Woods High team, using some sort of power to heal an injury on a civilian woman that was huddled up next to a car.

"(Is that lady going to be okay, Fiona?)" Bobby asked as he walked up to the ponytailed girl in white robes. Looking up from her patient, Fiona nodded once, drawing a sigh of relief from the Hispanic young adult. "(Good,)" Bobby said, "(I was worried that she might have been really roughed up by the guy I just took down. I saw that bastard horribly beat this one guy from U.A.'s team for the team battle event before I started chasing after him.)"

As she helped the civilian woman to her feet, Fiona said to Bobby, "(What I would like to know is where all of these villains even came from! How the hell is Japan's villain problem so bad?! You don't see stuff like this over in Royal Woods, let me-)" The brunette ponytailed girl was cut off when she, as well as Bobby, saw an older, pink-haired man wearing only a grass skirt and a beaded necklace run on by.

As they watched the eccentric older man run into the distance, both Bobby and Fiona wore looks of confusion. "(…Was that the pink-haired man that Lori told me is her sister Luna's old music tutor?)" Bobby said in a confused, dumbfounded tone, crossing his arms over his chest, "(What is he doing here?)"

"(I think the more pertinent question is why is he running around wearing only a grass skirt and a beaded necklace,)" Fiona remarked dryly, drawing a nod of agreement out of Bobby.

* * *

Aizawa, Hizashi and Gran Torino were all helping the heroes fight the large mass of fodder villains that were in the heart of the city. Sure, the three men were surprised to see it when the heroes were joined and sub sequentially aided by various allies, and they were all grateful when they saw members of the monster world, mages from the resident mages' guild of Magnolia Town, Fiore, and even a few Konoha shinobi show up to help them drive back the villainous hordes. But the sheer numbers that the villains had brought to the table were making Aizawa and the others pale with dread, worried that even with what they had, things may not end up going so favorably for those who would give all to defend what is good.

"This is starting to look bad," Hizashi squeaked in feared worry as he, while standing next to Aizawa and Gran Torino, overlooked a mass battlefield where pro heroes, backed by their various allies, were still outnumbered by the villains by a mile.

Gran Torino scoffed in a grumpy old man sort of tone. "Don't let their numbers scare you, boy," the retired pro hero scolded, "Sure, all of these villains vastly outnumber us and those who came to help us in our time of need. But they're all low level threats at best. There's no way a force of quantity can take out the force of quality that we-"

*THUM*

The ground shook with the sounding of that very heavy footfall, cutting Gran Torino off and prompting him, as well as Aizawa and Hizashi, to look over in the area that the sound seemed to have come from. Turning the corner around a large building was something, or rather some_one_, whose very presence was the first thing today that instilled any amount of fear, dread and worry into Gran Torino's old heart.

Gigantomachia.

The gargantuan villain let out a loud roar as he strode towards where the bulk of the fighting was taking place, any attacks thrown at him merely bounding off of his resilient, gigantic form. Raising his right hand back, Gigantomachia swung it forward in a backhanded slapping motion, sweeping up many heroes, some of their various allies, and even a few of the fodder villains that were on his side technically in a single motion.

"You…" Gran Torino muttered in a barely audible tone as he looked at where Gigantomachia had entered the fighting, "…You have got to be kidding me. The villains somehow got ahold of that monster, and they brought him to help them destroy the city?"

"He's just swinging wildly at the heroes," Hizashi pointed out, "Without any care of who gets in the way of his attacks. Look at how some of the people tossed up by his backhanded smack attacks are some of the fodder villains."

Aizawa gently shook his head in disbelief, his head spinning beyond all reason by what he was witnessing. "…There's just no fucking way that-"

"Mr. Aizawa!" a familiar male voice called out from behind where Aizawa and the others stood, making all of them turn to see Aggro and Allison, both with their respective golden elemental cloaks up, having run up to join them. It was clear that Aggro, who is male and speaks Japanese unlike his twin sister, was the one that had spoken up. "Aizawa," Aggro began, both his tone and expression serious, "Can you give me and Allison a quick summary on what's-"

"(Jötunn!)" Allison exclaimed, her eyes wide with surprise as she looked right over where Gigantomachia was on a rampage. To the surprise of Aizawa, Hizashi and Gran Torino but to the lack of surprise from Aggro, Allison spoke with a very clear and noticeable hint of amused excitement in her tone. The Viking Hero pointed her golf club right at the gargantuan villain as she said while addressing Aggro, "(I was not told that there would be a jötunn here, brother!)" Allison gave a darkly amused grin. "(I care not what the other warriors in this battle want, but I am claiming that jötunn as mine to vanquish!)"

Aggro, again with a total lack of surprise on his part, merely shrugged, a close-eyed wry look of amusement on his face. Aizawa and Hizashi, both of whom know enough English to understand what Allison had just said, looked surprised by her declaration. Gran Torino, on the other hand, looked completely lost. Gesturing over to the Viking Hero, Gran Torino looked up at Aizawa and the others, a mildly annoyed and confused look on his face.

"What in blazes did she just say? Why isn't she speaking in Japanese?!"

Letting out a mildly resigned but overall still mostly amused breath, Aggro said, "My sister Allison here doesn't speak Japanese, only English and Swedish." The male twin then turned to face the retired pro hero. "…And to answer your question, she says that she wants to claim that giant villain over there as hers to kill."

Gran Torino's response to Aggro's translation actually surprised him; the older hero was actually _laughing_. In an incredulous tone.

Gran Torino gestured to where Gigantomachia still rampaged against the heroes, as well as whoever was unlucky enough to get in his way. "There's no _killing_ that monster," Gran Torino declared in a skeptical tone, "Hell, I doubt that there's any _wounding_ that thing either! That beast is nothing short of a walking disaster!" Gran Torino crossed his arms over his chest as he looked up at Aggro, his scowl unchanging. "Fighting that thing is a fool's errand, I say!"

Aggro, with a wry look on his face as he regarded the retired pro hero, turned to face his older twin sister. "(Hey, Allison.)"

"(What is it, brother?)"

Aggro simply jerked a thumb over his right shoulder, pointing out where Gigantomachia was still fighting the heroes and their allies. The Samurai Hero then gave an amused grin as he regarded his Viking counterpart. "(…Send that jötunn to meet Loki's daughter.)"

The battle-hungry grin on Allison's face could not be mistaken for anything else as she dashed forward, making a beeline for Gigantomachia. Gran Torino went wide-eyed with total shock as the girl cloaked in golden lightning ran right for the unstoppable force that was Gigantomachia. As for both Aizawa and Hizashi, they were loads less surprised, as well as loads more assured that the Viking Hero would not fall to the gargantuan villain.

Allison, as she ran right towards where Gigantomachia was rampaging against the heroes and all others who got in his way of said heroes, simply said, "(Fenrisúlfr.)" After Allison had said that one word, the cloak of golden lightning that enshrouded her completely surged suddenly, becoming larger, and covering more area. The mass of golden lightning, after it reached a certain size threshold but still continued to grow larger still, began to take a more defined, wolf-like shape as the Viking Hero continued to make her way towards battle.

…

Gigantomachia, with a swing of his mighty arm, sent a mass of about a dozen pro heroes flying backwards, a few of which even crashing through windows. …Located on upper floors of multi-floor buildings. The gargantuan villain was fighting the heroes as he was ordered by Shigaraki, the chosen successor of the esteemed All For One. At first, Gigantomachia had his doubts about his master's successor, and as such was by no means in any rush to start working for the gray-haired young adult man.

But Shigaraki had made a name for himself, had proven himself in a truly glorious fashion. Having first-hand witnessed Shigaraki's glory himself, Gigantomachia, with a tear in his eye, had finally seen in Shigaraki what All For One did, and as such now acknowledged him. It was with a sense of pride that the gargantuan villain now served under the orders of his master's chosen successor, as if said successor was the master him-

Gigantomachia's trail of thought was cut off as, before he could swing his mighty arms at the mass of heroes again, he was tackled from his right side by…something…that had to be at least as big as him. Furthermore, whatever it was that had tackled the gargantuan villain also had some sort of an electrical element to it, and said element was powerful enough to actually cause him some degree of physical harm/damage.

Gigantomachia, surprised that there was _anything_ aside from what his old master could pull off that was able to actually damage him, turned his attention to see what it was. To the surprise of Gigantomachia, he saw that he had been tackled by a gigantic wolf that looked to be made _entirely_ of golden lightning. Gigantomachia also spotted what appeared to be a regular-sized human inside of the wolf avatar's head, but he did not pay that puny human within the wolf all that much mind, as the wolf itself opened its maw to let out a challenging howl.

Without warning, the gold lightning wolf dash right towards the gargantuan villain and lunged up, slamming its front paws onto Gigantomachia's shoulders as its claws dug into flesh, sending jolts of pain into Gigantomachia's form. The wolf avatar then reached forward with its open maw and crunched down on the right side of Gigantomachia's neck, mauling the area between the right side of the neck and the right shoulder.

The gargantuan villain let out pained bellows as claws and fangs of golden lightning pierced his once impenetrable flesh, the golden lightning electrocuting him slowly. Gigantomachia, with all of his effort, tried to push the wolf avatar away, pry its maw open and make it let go of him. During that struggle, the human within the wolf avatar's head threw her right arm out, before a large hammer of golden lightning formed on the side of the wolf avatar's head, right before said hammer smacked into the side of Gigantomachia's head, stunning him.

Seeing that the jötunn she had engaged in battle was stunned, Allison gave a smirk as she thrusted her golf club so that it pointed straight up into the skies above. A surging mass of the Viking Hero's golden lightning began to form, and the mass flew right in the direction of the gargantuan villain after she made a flinging motion towards him.

"(Ragnarök!)"

The mass of golden lightning, its golden coloration so deeply concentrated that it looked as if it were made of actual solid gold, struck Gigantomachia right in the torn wounds on the area of his right shoulder, not only striking the gargantuan villain true but allowing some of the electrical power to course through his obscenely large form. Never before in all his life had Gigantomachia taken an attack so painful, so powerful.

The true golden lightning tore him asunder, damaged him so. In his pained throes as he was shocked, Gigantomachia felt something within him burst. Suddenly, and to the shock of many who were seeing this, blood erupted from not just Gigantomachia's mouth, but also both his nostrils and both of his ears. Stains appearing suddenly on both the front and back of his pants were a sign that his anus and urethra were erupting with blood as well.

After the true golden lightning had finished, Gigantomachia, his form eerily still, slowly fell backwards. The force of gravity, combined with the epic weight of so large a being, sped things up near the end, and everyone was barely able to avoid being crushed under the very large body of the gargantuan villain. Gigantomachia landed on his back with an earth-shaking thud, a sight that took many in that area by surprise.

Chief among those who were surprised was Gran Torino, his mouth opened wide with slack-jawed disbelief. "…She…" the retired pro hero said, his tone barely above a whisper thus was barely audible, "…That girl actually did it." Gran Torino turned his attention to Aizawa, Hizashi and Aggro, the last of those three looking like he was sort of expecting what his older twin sister had just pulled off. The trio of pro heroes and Aggro then proceeded to watch as the wolf avatar, its front left paw on the fallen villain's chest while its other three paws all stood on the ground, raised its head up and let loose a skyward howl.

* * *

A group of lesser-known pro heroes were fighting a mass of fodder villains off to the side of the bulk of the fighting in the heart of the city. As that fighting was going on, two lesser pro heroes spotted a villain in a dark colored long coat stalk towards the fighting, giving off an oppressive doom and gloom vibe in the process. Seeing this, the two lesser pro heroes, both intent on putting a stop to the villain before he could do anything, rushed in to confront and defeat him.

…Only for Shigaraki, the villain in question, to grab both by their respective throats when they reached him, activate his quirk, and turned both to dust, ending them for good. After the leader of the Paranormal Liberation Front lowered his arms, he was joined by Skeptic, one of his many lieutenants in the Front. The long dark-haired villain landed next to Shigaraki on his right, in a three-point landing position.

"I got some really bad news, boss," Skeptic said in a worried, mildly apprehensive tone, "I just received word that some notable members of the Front have been killed in the ongoing battle."

Shigaraki turned to regard Skeptic, who was barely able to notice that the gray-haired villain arched a wry eyebrow. Skeptic let out a resigned sigh before he continued. "…I don't know _all_ of whom has been killed thus far, but I have been able to confirm that we lost Trumpet, Geten and Gigantomachia to the heroes and their various allies."

"What?!" Shigaraki exclaimed, suddenly surprised, suddenly showing some manner of emotion, "You're telling me that Gigantomachia has been killed?! How is that even possible?!" The leader of the Paranormal Liberation Front growled in annoyance, in anger. "This is all Re-Destro's fault!" Shigaraki exclaimed, "It was his idea to launch this attack two months before I had all that I needed in order to be truly ready! And in the haste of this attack, we've just lost one of the greatest powers that Sensei had left to me! Does Re-Destro know how much effort the League had put into convincing that gigantic oaf to listen to me?! I swear when I get my hands on him I'm going to-"

"Boss," Skeptic interrupted, making Shigaraki turn quickly to face him. There was an angry, dangerous look on the face of the leader of the Front. "…In Re-Destro's defense, there was no way that any of us could have seen Gigantomachia falling in battle coming," Skeptic said in as calming a manner as he could manage, "We should have been more prepared to deal with any and every possible setback that our attack here could have had on us."

Shigaraki turned to face forward, growling with annoyance. The decaying quirk villain wanted to very badly destroy something out of all of the building frustration that was engulfing his very being. One of the top things he wanted to dust was that idiot Re-Destro, for it was him who had convinced Shigaraki that attacking now, while the city was distracted by the big event that U.A. was hosting in conjunction with a high school visiting from the United States, was a good idea rather than wait the remaining two months like what was in the original plan.

Yes, Shigaraki decided then and there. The major setback that was in the form of Gigantomachia getting killed would be pinned solely on the head of Re-Destro, and dusting him would be the first thing that the decaying quirk villain would do once he found him. Shigaraki even thought about what exactly he could do to torture Re-Destro, but his thoughts were interrupted when he heard something very large running towards him, the footfalls of whatever that thing was getting louder and louder.

…

"…You have got to be kidding me," Aizawa said, paling a bit as he, Hizashi, Gran Torino and Aggro all looked in the same direction, having spotted a gray-haired villain appear on the battlefield, wearing a dark long coat. Letting out a resigned breath, the underground hero said as he pointed to said villain, "The leader of the villains just showed up."

Aggro, with a curious look on his face, focused in the direction that Aizawa was pointing in, his gaze squinting a bit. "…You mean that fellow with the messy gray hair and he's wearing that dark coat?" The Samurai Hero saw Aizawa nod in the affirmative to his question when he turned to face him. Turning his attention back around to face where Shigaraki stood a ways away, Aggro said, "What do you guys know about him?"

"If he touches you, you turn to dust," Hizashi summarized simply, drawing confirming nods out of both Aizawa and Gran Torino. The former of that pair was even rubbing his right elbow unconsciously, as if it was on reflex due to remembering something of a rather unpleasant nature.

Aggro turned back to look in the direction that Shigaraki was in and, to his unsettlement, saw the decaying quirk villain turn two lesser pro heroes to dust as he had them by their respective throats. Aggro nodded once in a grim manner, acknowledging Shigaraki as a very serious threat that had to be dealt with before he could go on to do more harm. Luckily for him, the Samurai Hero had a good idea on how to put an end to that problem.

"…I'm going to use Flames of Rebuke on him."

Before Aizawa, Hizashi or Gran Torino could stop him, Aggro took a running sprint towards Shigaraki, his cloak of golden flames growing larger and larger as they began to take on a more defined shape, much like what Allison did when she created the wolf avatar that she controlled. However, rather than take on the shape of a wolf, Aggro's flames took on the shape of a gigantic fox with multiple tails. With a speed quicker than his sister's wolf, the Samurai Hero got closer to the decaying quirk villain, the footfalls of his multi-tailed fox avatar just as loud and strong as those of the aforementioned wolf.

When he was within what he saw as good range of his target, Aggro thrusted his right hand forward. "Flames of Rebuke!" The palm that Aggro had aimed towards Shigaraki started collecting a mass of flames, their golden coloration so deeply concentrated that it looked as if it were made of actual solid gold, began to form. After the mass became big enough, it ended up shooting forward right towards Shigaraki in a focused, pillar-shaped beam. Aggro also spotted a long dark-haired fellow next to the villain leader, but said fellow jumped out of the way before the attack got close.

The decaying quirk villain barely had time to turn to see what was going on when he was struck by Flames of Rebuke, causing a burst of brilliant golden flames to erupt around him, engulfing his slender form completely as he cried out in pain. The sheer force the attack was hitting Shigaraki with made him convulse as the flames scorched him terribly. The damage and pain was so great that something within Shigaraki burst, causing him to puke up an oozing blob of rich, warm life-crimson that forced the hand-mask off of his face. Shigaraki then fell over backwards, landing face up on the ground and laying there, eerily still.

Skeptic, as he saw what had happened, was beyond shocked, his eyes wider than he would have ever imagined to be even conceivable. "No…no way…" Skeptic muttered to himself, having no idea how to comprehend it that the Paranormal Liberation Front had not only lost two lieutenants and its strongest warrior, but now it had just lost its _Grand Commander_. The dark long-haired villain was now finding himself agreeing with the words of (the now late) Shigaraki.

Re-Destro really is a complete and total idiot.

* * *

Izuku, as he ran with Lincoln, Tsukune and Natsu, was trying to get innocent civilians in the section they were in and get them to safety before heading back in to fight off the seemingly countless number of fodder villains. "Well wowee," Natsu remarked in a casual tone as he slugged a fodder villain in the face with a fiery punch, knocking said villain out cold. Turning to face the other guys, the Fire Dragon Slayer mage said, "I've fought bandits on a few quests, but all of these villains take the cake in a number of fields compared to the bandits."

"Which you should take as all the more reason why we have to find any civilians in this area and get them to safety before the villains find them first," Izuku replied, "The last thing that we want is for even one civilian to get-" The green-eyed boy was cut off when, as he and the others sensed something swing at them, they all leapt out of the way, narrowly avoiding getting struck by a large, pitch black-colored fist that pulled back when it failed to hit any of them.

Looking over, Izuku and the others saw the large, muscular, towering form of Re-Destro (though none of them knew his name) coming up from his custom three-wheeled wheelchair. The pitch-black skinned villain, using his quirk to its fullest extent, looked down at Izuku and the rest of the party with a gleeful, self-amused sneer. Re-Destro cracked his knuckles as he pounded a fist into his hand.

"More heroes that are intent on getting in the way of the glory that is by right owed to the glorious leader of the Paranormal Liberation Front?" Re-Destro said, clearly sounding intent on attacking Izuku and his party regardless of what they would end up doing, "It matters not. Every last one of your kind will either kneel before the Grand Commander, or be put to the chopping block for daring to-"

The large, pitch-black villain was cut off when he was kicked square in his gut by someone dealing a foot-slam style kick, sending him reeling back a few dozen feet or so. To the surprise of Izuku and the rest of his party, they were saved by a pink-haired man who looked to be in his very early sixties, and that said man wore only a grass skirt and a beaded necklace. Izuku and Tsukune all had no idea who this man was, but Lincoln and Natsu seemed to recognize him.

"Mr. Fisher!" the white-haired boy exclaimed, prompting Harold to turn and face the party.

"Ah, young man!" Harold said in a mildly surprised but also mildly amused tone, "I'm glad to see a familiar face!" Turning back around to see where Re-Destro laid, the pink-haired older man gave the villain a serious, grim look. "…I take it that this one here is an adept?" Harold said as he reached to the right side of the waist on his grass skirt, pulling it and his beaded necklace off in one swift, fluid motion to reveal that… he wore a long-sleeved shirt under a baggy t-shirt, a pair of shinobi slacks, a pair of shinobi sandals and a Konoha ninja headband underneath his previous outfit.

As everyone aside from Lincoln looked at Harold with surprised, confused looks, Harold said as he cracked his knuckles, "Alright, lads, I'll be joining you guys to fight that clown over there."

"How did you manage to hide that entire outfit underneath just a grass skirt and a beaded necklace?" Izuku asked, completely dumbfounded by what he had just bore witness to.

Harold held up his right index finger as he said, "Very carefully."

"Either way," Izuku said as he and everyone else turned their attention to where Re-Destro was now picking himself up and getting ready to charge at them, "If all of us here are ready, I suggest that we fight this villain and take him down. The green-eyed boy, with Harold, Lincoln, Tsukune and Natsu all following him, proceeded to run right towards Re-Destro, intent on stopping the villainous lieutenant of the Front once and for all.

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Author's notes;

Things are beginning to wind down in this arc, with the final climax set to happen in the next chapter. Also, sorry if any of you have issues with a number of villains all being axed, but the stage has to be cleared for some of the next arcs, as the man who can be considered the ultimate villain of this story as a whole will begin to take actions in earnest. Said ultimate villain will be having truly unforgivable things done, things that are too much even for the other villains.

Said ultimate villain will also have some actions taken at the end of _this_ arc.


	43. Chapter 43

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter forty-three: Villain Siege part five- Final climax

Re-Destro, one of the lieutenants of the Paranormal Liberation Front, rushed towards the group of five guys who all stood in his way. The former MLA leader, at the peak of his potential power at one-hundred percent stress, felt confident that he alone would be able to defeat all of the would-be heroes who currently stood in his way, in the way of the Front, in the way of the highly exalted Grand Commander.

…Re-Destro, as one could expect, ended up being greatly _surprised_.

Izuku rushed past Re-Destro's large, pitch-black from, hanging behind while Lincoln and Harold took the left and right (respectively and from Re-Destro's point of view) sides and Tsukune and Natsu confronted him head on. Before the villain could take any action, he felt a slash on his left side, turned to see Lincoln leaping back with a bloodied bowie knife. Re-Destro was disgusted when he saw the white-haired boy lick the blood off the blade, but before he could object, he was completely paralyzed by some power he didn't understand.

"Fisher Family Style!" Harold declared as he pulled his right fist back before throwing a punch forward towards Re-Destro, "Punch of one-thousand Happy Hours!" The attack, while nothing more than a regular punch with a flashy name, did distract Re-Destro while he was hit from his front by ice from Tsukune and fire from Natsu.

The former MLA leader turned to regard the Fire Dragon Slayer mage and the human-turned-snow fairy, intend on punching them both as they both leapt to the side of the street the fight was taking place on. This action at first confused Re-Destro, but he got his answer when he was struck from behind by a devastating axe kick as Izuku yelled, "Manchester Smash!" The axe kick from Izuku, who was letting off streaks of green electricity, sent Re-Destro tumbling forward with a blinding speed.

Rushing alongside then right past Re-Destro, Izuku got ahead and, activating Blackwhip, grabbed ahold of a streetlight on his (Izuku's) left with the right whip and a streetlight on his right with his left whip. When Re-Destro got close enough, Izuku pulled hard on both whips, yanking the streetlights down and causing them to crash down upon the large, pitch-black villain, pinning him down somewhat.

"Delaware Smash Air Force!" Izuku yelled as, while wearing the gloves that Mei had made for him, he flicked his middle finger forward, creating a concussive blast of air that struck Re-Destro in the face. As the force of that attack actually pushed Re-Destro away and out from under the streetlights that were pulled down on top of him, Izuku rushed forward, intent on not letting the villain that he and his allies were fighting get away.

As Re-Destro tumbled head over heels through the air, unable to move as he still felt paralyzed, Natsu appeared on his left while Tsukune appeared on his right. The two boys, one a snow fairy and the other a mage, fired at the pitch-black villain, striking his left and right sides with fire and ice respectively and making him cry out in pain as Izuku caught up and, swinging his left foot at Re-Destro's head in a roundhouse kick style, yelled out, "Shoot Style: St. Louis Smash!"

The devastating roundhouse kick struck Re-Destro on the right side of his enlarged, pitch-black head, sending him smashing into the side of a three-story tall brick building. Re-Destro was still stunned, unable to move, as he saw that green-haired boy rush him with his right fist pulled back. Swinging his fist up towards Re-Destro's face, Izuku yelled, "Detroit Smash!" as the punch scraped up the left side of the pitch-black villain's face with such force that it actually left a bit of a gouge.

Being scarred in such a manner made Re-Destro cry out in pain, still helpless to move as he was still under the influence of whatever power it was that was paralyzing him. All that the former MLA leader could do was watch as Harold, his head aimed at his (Re-Destro's) face, was flying right at him, his body straight. The pink-haired older man seemed as if he were a spear that had been thrown by someone, in this case both Natsu and Tsukune, who used their respective powers to give Harold's flying speed a bit of a boost.

"Fisher Family style: Awesome Rock Head-bang!" Harold declared as he head-butted Re-Destro right in his left eye. Re-Destro, unable to block the attack, could only cry out in pain as Harold's head made contact with his eye. After he had slammed his head into the pitch-black villain's eye, Harold fell back in the air, did a few backflips when he regained his sense of balance, and then he landed on his feet behind the others.

Natsu, with an amused but mildly confused look on his face, looked at Re-Destro while he crossed his arms over his chest. "You know, I'm surprised that this one here hasn't tried to fight back at all," the Fire Dragon Slayer mage remarked, "I mean, shouldn't he have at least tried to stop Harold from head-butting him in the eye?"

"He's still under the paralysis effect of my Vampiric Stun quirk," Lincoln explained, "That being said, we ought to hurry up and defeat him while he's still stunned."

Izuku, still letting off arcs of green electricity, nodded grimly in agreement as he and the others witnessed Re-Destro's form shrink down and go from its pitch black coloration to a more normal color for a Japanese citizen. The deflated villain also had orange hair that was balding, and he wore nothing on the upper half of his body; Izuku figured that whatever top that Re-Destro wore was torn to shreds when the villain grew to his max size.

The green-haired cinnamon roll, with his right fist pulled back rushed at the deflated, stunned Re-Destro. A particularly high amount of that green electricity surged out from Izuku's right arm as he swung his fist at the side of Re-Destro's head, shouting, "Detroit Smash!" as he struck with such force that it picked up the villain and sent him flying off into the air, disappearing over the line in the distance made of the tops of various buildings. Re-Destro became little more than a small twinkle in the air after he had been sent flying by the protégé of All Might.

Izuku, as he stumbled backwards a bit, ended up being caught by Harold, keeping the green-eyed boy from falling backwards and hitting the ground. "Holy fucking shit, little dude," Harold said in a sincerely impressed tone, looking up in the air in the direction Re-Destro had disappeared off into, "You sent that guy flying into the horizon." Looking down at the young teen that he was holding in his arms, Harold said, "You ever considered becoming a ninja? Because I'm pretty sure that Konoha can use strength like that right now."

Letting out a tired breath, Izuku replied, "I…I just want all of this fighting to be over."

* * *

Skeptic was beyond shocked when he saw the vast bulk of the Paranormal Liberation Front get more and more of its mass torn out and down before his eyes. The long dark-haired villain knew that things would have quickly taken a downhill course for him and his fellow Front members when two lieutenants, as well as the Front's strongest warrior and _friggin_' _Shigaraki_ were all killed in the ongoing siege that they had launched on the city, two months ahead of Shigaraki's schedule due to Re-Destro's assurances that now was a very good time to strike.

But this…all of this that he was now seeing, this worried him beyond all of that combined. A large red dragon appeared out of nowhere and quickly made mincemeat of any and all members of the Front that it found. Similarly, other monsters, for what _else_ could Skeptic call all those other supernatural beings, showed up and started giving the members of the Front a hard time, with one silver-haired vampire kicking the living daylights out of every solider she struck.

There were also the shinobi that were backing the pro heroes, with one that had long spiky blonde hair killing a good number of the Front's soldiers with a giant bluish sphere that was spinning with curved points, like a giant throwing star, that he threw as said villains. "There is no way that all of this is possible…" Skeptic said in a somber tone as the once near uncountable numbers of the Front was soundly being whittled down in droves by the allies of the heroes, and even a few of the pro heroes themselves, although most of them still aimed to knock out and take what villains hey fought alive.

As the long dark-haired villain backed up a few steps, he heard and sensed something land next to him rather hard, as if that something had been sent flying from a ways away. Turning to look, Skeptic saw that Re-Destro had landed right next to him. Skeptic scowled, as the Front's attack on the city today was all the idea of the former leader of the MLA. Despite how Re-Destro still held authority over him, Skeptic would let nothing stop him from tearing into the balding man.

"I hope you're happy, you bastard!" Skeptic snapped at Re-Destro after the latter was able to straighten himself out and up, "Do you know how much of our grunt forces, how much of our command structure, has been wiped out in this attack?!"

"It's can't…uhnn…be that bad, Skeptic," Re-Destro remarked, grunting a bit in pain as he cracked his neck a bit.

Skeptic knew that trying to get through to his boss right here and now was not a good idea, as the two of them were still in danger. Dragging Re-Destro along behind him, the long dark-haired villain declared, "We need to bail _NOW_, before the two of us are killed as well!" Re-Destro tried to object to being taken away from the fighting, the chance to win glory in the name of the untied power that was the Paranormal Liberation Front.

What Skeptic said in response to get him to shut up not only shut Re-Destro up soundly, but it made him realize that by the end of the day, not only would there not _be_ a Paranormal Liberation Front left when all was said and done, but that an overwhelmingly vast majority of the original Meta Liberation Army would be gone as well. Re-Destro was hunched over in his special wheelchair somewhat, giving off a truly humbled air as he reflected on the fact that all that he had done, all that he had given to help bring his late father's vision to fruit, had been undone, had been utterly ruined by those who got in their way.

"At this point, less than ten percent of the forces we came here with are still _alive_."

* * *

Later in the afternoon, close approaching evening, the battle that had engulfed the whole of the city had finally come to an end. Someone with a recon quirk was able to do a headcount on all of the villains that had attacked the city, so the Commission was able to get numbers on everything that had happened today;

Four-hundred and seventy-five villains had been defeated and captured alive, with approximately ninety percent of that number, surprisingly enough, being captured by hero course students from U.A. and some of the members of the Royal Woods High team that came to Japan for the team battle event. Unfortunately enough, an estimated two-hundred villains, with the real number most likely being below two-hundred, was able to escape the fighting, and would undoubtedly go on to commit more evil.

…But even both of those numbers were overshadowed by the fact that one-hundred _thousand_ seven-hundred and forty-four villains were all killed (that's the official head count). Most of the villains that fell in the battle for the city today were the grunt soldiers of the front, but there were a few notable members who were vanquished. Among that noted lot were two villains that were identified as lieutenants of the Front, Trumpet and Geten.

Gigantomachia, a villain considered to be the strongest warrior that the Front had to offer, was also felled in battle by Asgardian. One of the various crews hired to clean up all of the mess all over the city came across the impaled body of the pro hero Slidin' Go, and official statements from Visionquest, who was backed by two of her friends and a Japanese hero-in-training, confirmed that the fallen Slidin' Go was spouting pro-PLF propaganda as he fought them. A good number of the Japanese populace would be shocked to learn from tomorrow's morning news that one of their heroes was actually in bed with the ideals of a villainous organization.

Perhaps the most surprising instance in the whole of the villain's attack on the city was when the villain Shigaraki, the very man who was the top boss that commanded all of the villains, was felled in the fighting by Sengoku. Toshinori Yagi, when he and his friend Detective Tsukauchi visited the morgue where Shigaraki's remains were taken to and saw the late villain lay still and cold in the open body drawer, felt great pangs of regret in his heart, wishing that he was able to do something, anything, for the grandson of his (Toshinori's) late mentor Nana Shimura.

"_Curse you_, _All For One_," the former symbol of peace swore in his mind as tears of regret filled the corners of his eyes as he and Tsukauchi watched the mortician close the body drawer that Shigaraki was being kept in, "_Look at what your evil had done_, _leading Nana_'_s own family down the path of villainy_." Despite what Toshinori may feel if only due to Shigaraki's relation to the late Nana, the fact that the day had been won, that so many villains had been ended, was a fact that made many feel that the age of heroes was going strong and would not be stopped.

…If only the citizenry of Japan knew of the losses that their peace and freedom had been bought with this day.

* * *

Harold was found by his fellows from Konoha, and Natsu was picked up by other mages from Fairy Tail. Tsukune likewise was collected by his friends, one of which was his girlfriend Mizore, who threw her arms around his shoulders and threw her face into his chest as she cried out of a sense of relief. This left a tired Izuku, who was being partly carried by Lincoln, walking into an office room somewhere in the main building of U.A.

When he entered, the green-eyed boy spotted his homeroom teacher Aizawa, as well as his classmates Bakugo, Todoroki, Sero and Mina. To Izuku's worry, Mina was softly crying as she was comforted by Sero, who sat on her right. Bakugo looked to the members of his 'squad', his own expression looking similarly as troubled. Looking over to Aizawa, Izuku saw that the class 1-A homeroom teacher had an expression that was a mix of remorse, guilt, sadness, and looking like he was barely keeping it together without softly crying himself.

"…Guys?" Everyone who Izuku saw in the room looked over to see the green-eyed boy himself standing there in the doorway, partly supported by the protégé of Sengoku. "…What happened?" Izuku asked, worried about what the answer may be, if the gnawing sense of dread pooling in the pit of his stomach.

Aizawa shuddered a bit as he huffed in a manner showing that he was trying _very_ hard not to cry. Mina, who was actually crying, was unable to say anything, and Sero was still trying to comfort her. Even Bakugo, normally always having something, anything at all, to say to whatever came out of the green-haired cinnamon roll's mouth, was finding himself silent. Thus it ended up that Todoroki had to inform Izuku of the tragic news.

"There is no easy way to say this, Midoriya, so I'm just going to say it straight up," the two-toned teen replied, a hint of grim resignation in his tone. Todoroki took a breath to steady himself before he began to explain what was going on. "…Ten of our schoolmates were killed in the villain's attack on the city today."

Right away, Izuku's eyes widened with shock, the sheer surprise of what Todoroki had told him giving him enough of a surge of energy to stand on his own without the support of Lincoln. The green-eyed boy was finding it impossible that anyone from U.A. could have fallen in all of the fighting that had engulfed the whole of the city this day.

Seeing the total look of disbelief on his friend's face, Todoroki sighed in an understanding tone. "…Aizawa-sensei has a list of everyone from U.A. who was killed in the fighting against the massive force of villains that attacked the city," Todoroki said to Izuku while gesturing to the underground hero who sat in the room, barely able to hold it together. Izuku swallowed a lump in his throat as he approached Aizawa who, knowing what Izuku was going to ask, got out a sheet of paper and handed it over the moment Izuku got within range.

Izuku was beyond shocked to see the ten names of his U.A. schoolmates who were all killed in the fighting today. The first five names he saw were particularly shocking as all of them were some of his classmates in class 1-A, those being Tsuyu, Hatsume, Yaoyorozu, Kaminari and Kirishima. Ibara, as well as Shihai, Manga and Togaru from class 1-B were all also killed, and the last name on the list of casualties was Tamaki-sempai of the Big Three.

As the green-eyed boy looked at the list of those who had been lost, he momentarily looked up and over to Mina when he heard her let out a particularly notable sob. Having seen two of the members of Bakugo's 'squad' on the list of those who were killed gave Izuku an idea on why Mina was crying at the moment. He himself felt like crying, given that many of his schoolmates had been taken away well before any of their respective times had come.

"…How the fuck are we going to explain this to everyone?" Izuku heard Bakugo say, turning his attention over to look at the explosive teen, who was oddly giving off a quiet, somber air that by no means was common for him. Getting up, Bakugo gestured to where Izuku stood with the list that was received from the underground hero. "The people that are on that list are _fucking dead_," Bakugo said, "How the fuck are we going to explain this to everyone that survived the villain attack? I can't imagine that a lot of them will be happy!"

"Before anything…" Aizawa said as he struggled to keep himself calm, "…We need to inform the families of the students who were killed in the villains' attack on the city. Now then, in the event of cases where there are multiple casualties, we go by alphabetical order in respect to the last names of the-"

Aizawa was cut off when he and everyone else heard someone knock on the door frame that led into the room everyone was in. Turning to look, Aizawa and the rest saw Aggro standing in the doorway. "…You can go ahead and belay the order of informing those who lost family today, Mr. Aizawa," the Samurai Hero remarked, "My sisters, Bobby and I can fix this."

"Oh yeah," Lincoln said as he turned to look up at his mentor, "Luna told me about how Sam was killed earlier today during the fighting, but she found you and got you to resurrect Sam for her." Aggro nodded once to the white-haired boy in confirmation, a small but knowing smile on his face.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," Bakugo said, cutting everyone off as he got up and walked over to Aggro, getting within a foot of his face. "…What did your boy wonder here just say?" Bakugo said, looking and sounding like he didn't believe the white-haired boy's words.

Looking around, Aggro saw that everyone else in the room were all looking at him with looks of disbelief, with only Lincoln not sharing in that; the white-haired boy, in fact, looked as if he had seen what was surprising everyone else before. With a somewhat helpless shrug, Aggro said, "I guess that it's something that you need to see to believe."

…

Izuku and his classmates from the room, accompanied by Aggro and Lincoln, followed Aizawa until they reached Gym Gamma, which was completely bare save for ten white sheets on the ground, each one completely covering a human-sized object each. Which was appropriate given that the bodies of those killed in the villain attack were lying under those sheets, after all of them had been found and taken to the school for holding until proper arrangements could be made to take care of the deceased.

Aggro, with Lincoln following him, walked over to the covered body located closest to the front doors of the gym on their left side. Aggro grabbed the one end of the sheet and pulled it back, revealing that Mei Hatsume laid under that sheet. The eccentric inventor laid eerily still on the cold floor of Gym Gamma, her body growing colder still as her eyes were closed, never to see any light ever again.

…But the Samurai Hero would be having none of that.

Aggro yanked the sheet covering Hatsume's dead body away completely, drawing a surprised yelping gasp out of Mina as she spotted the remains of a fellow class 1-A girl. Aggro scooped Hatsume's body up, his left hand going under the back of her neck and his right going under the backs of her knees, then carried her over to approximately the center of Gym Gamma before he laid her body back down. Straightening himself back up, Aggro walked backwards a few steps away from Hatsume's body, always facing her remains. When he was at what he saw a good enough distance, Aggro aimed his slightly clenched hands so that both of their palms were aimed at Hatsume's body as he prepared to cast one of his super moves.

"Morning Sun!"

A small dome of golden flames appeared on top of Hatsume's body, between her chest and stomach. The dome grew bigger and bigger until it spread out to completely cover the dead body of the eccentric inventor. The dome grew larger still until it reached a height of about six or so feet, with an appropriately proportionate circumference. Izuku and everyone else watched in wonder as the sheer energy of the golden flames that enveloped Hatsume's remains washed over her, going into her dead form and causing a surge of energy from within. What happened next drew surprised cries out of everyone aside from Aggro, Lincoln and the dead.

Hatsume's eyes popped wide open as she suddenly gasped, drawing in a large, greedy breath of air as she bolted upright while sitting on the floor. The eccentric inventor, the color flushed from her skin, coughed a good bit as her dead lungs, all of her dead body, had suddenly been rebooted, returned to the land of the living. As Hatsume settled down a bit, Aggro turned to face everyone else that was in Gym Gamma, all of them wearing looks of unbelieving shock on their faces.

"…Like I said," Aggro began as the doors to Gym Gamma flew open, with Bobby leading Allison and Amy inside, "You can go ahead and belay the order of informing families, as there won't be anything to inform the families of."

* * *

Bobby stood in front of a large dome of golden winds that he had conjured on top of the body of Tamaki using his resurrection technique, Northern Wind. Nejire and (a particularly teary eyed) Mirio watched as the golden winds dissipated when Tamaki, his skin having paled, bolted upright while sitting on the floor of Gym Gamma as his lungs started to draw breath one again, as his heart started to beat once again. Mirio, overcome with relieved joy, rushed forward and threw his muscular, well-toned arms around his resurrected friend.

"(Rainbow Bridge!)" Allison declared as she conjured a dome of golden lightning on top of the body of Tsuyu. Many of those in class 1-A, Tokoyami in particular, watched with shock as their fallen classmate was resurrected by the power of the Viking Hero. Uraraka, who spotted Ryukyu watching nearby, could see a sense of relief flood into the Dragoon Hero's expression as the frog girl of class 1-A was brought back into the land of the living.

Amy, with the use of her Sacred Land super move, returned Togaru to life. When the mantis boy of 1-B had been brought back to the land of the living, he was carefully collected by some of the other class 1-B boys, among which was Shihai whose normally pitch black skin was now a shade of dark gray. Some of the 1-B boys patted Togaru on the back, with Monoma, in a way that made it clear he was only playfully ruffling some feathers, told the mantis boy that he had them (the rest of 1-B) worried.

Over where Bakugo, Mina and Sero were watching while they were joined by Kyoka who was supporting a pale-looking Kaminari, Aggro conjured another Morning Sun, the large dome of golden flames covering the body of someone that he was in the middle of resurrecting. After the dome of brilliant golden fire blew out, Kirishima sat upright on the floor of Gym Gamma with a sudden bolt. The pale-looking hardening quirk boy coughed a bit as his formerly dead body had to get used to being alive again, and so suddenly.

As Kirishima's breathing settled down to a regular level of breathing, Aggro remarked as he turned his head to look at Bakugo and the others, "With your friend here, the last of your schoolmates who were killed in the attack today have been returned to life." The Samurai Hero turned his body to fully face Bakugo and his 'squad'. "Make sure you guys tell everyone that those who have been resurrected need to take it easy for a bit."

"Well what about how Kirishima and the others look pale as fuck?" Bakugo asked, gesturing to where the pale-skinned, crimson-haired boy sat on the floor in Gym Gamma as he was getting used to being alive again.

Nodding once in understanding, Aggro replied simply, "A side-effect of them having been resurrected. The paleness will wear off on its own in a few days, sooner if they eat well and are allowed to get plenty of rest."

"A good thing that I heard that," Aizawa remarked aloud, getting everyone to turn to face him. The underground hero was accompanied by a few other U.A. staff members, among which were Nezu and Recovery Girl, the latter going about checking on all of the students who had been returned to life by the Sacred Heritage quirk users. While Recovery Girl was busy fussing over Yaoyorozu where the rich girl was sitting on the floor next to Ibara, Nezu approached Aggro.

The quirked animal principal let out a mildly troubled sigh before he looked up at the Samurai Hero. "I already discussed it with your school's principal," Nezu said as he began to explain his business, "And due to what happened, as well as the fact that you guys are set to return to the States soon, we agreed that we cannot actually have the team battle event between our respective schools. Additionally, I've decided to, on U.A.'s behalf, concede things to Royal Woods High." With a single nod, Nezu said, "Meaning that, officially, your school won the event, Sengoku."

Aggro, who understood what this meant, nodded once in acknowledgement. "…My sister Allison, knowing her, might be a little bit disappointed to learn that she won't get to face your students in battle, but I bet that she'll willingly consider all of the villains that she took down during the attack today as an acceptable substitute." Turning so that he fully faced Nezu, Aggro went on, "…And I'm willing to bet that you're yielding the event to Royal Woods High partly out of gratitude for what my sisters, Bobby and I did here in the gym."

Nezu, with a bit of a knowing smile on his face, gestured to something behind Aggro, making the Samurai Hero turn around and see Kirishima, as he still sat on the floor after having just been brought back to life, simply sit there as a crying Kinoko had her arms around his shoulders as she cried into his chest. The red-haired boy still looked a bit tired, but Aggro could tell that he was glad that the mushroom girl cared for him so. Aggro even got a bit of a chuckle when Recovery Girl made Kinoko back off so she could take a look at Kirishima.

* * *

Izuku, who was accompanied by Bakugo as both of them had to go to the exact same destination, walked through the front door of the Midoriya apartment, where they were received by Inko and Mitsuki, the latter visiting the former. U.A., understanding what the student populace had gone through during the villain's city-wide attack today, decided to cancel classes for the next few days while various issues related to post-attack work were taken care of. Part of giving all of the students this time off included allowing them to return home, something that both Recovery Girl and (especially) Hound Dog vouched was good for the mental recovery of those who had been brought back to life.

"Boys!" Inko cried out of worry as tears flowed freely down the sides of her full face, "Are the two of you alright?"

Izuku and Bakugo, both of whom collapsed into the sofa and an armchair respectively, let out tired, emotionally drained moans as Inko and Mitsuki, being moms and all, began to fret over the tired teen boys. Mitsuki, despite being Bakugo's mom, moved to sit next to Izuku on the sofa, gently collecting him and leaning him against her. "Izuku, sweetness, what all happened today while you and Katsuki were stuck in the city?"

"I woke up this morning when me and Kacchan's classmate Mina banged some pots outside of my dorm room over at U.A.," Izuku began as he started to tell his story, "The only thing on my mind at the time was how me, Kacchan and everyone else on our team were going to take part in a team battle event that we had no realistic shot of winning." The green-eyed boy let out a tired sigh before he went on with his tale.

"Then, when we got to the event itself and saw that there was beyond a shadow of a doubt no possible way that U.A. was going to win the event, we started things anyway. Then, right before the countdown to signal the battle could finish, everything was interrupted when a massive army of villains decided to attack the city right there and then. Everyone spread out, I met up with a few people from out of town who came to help fight off the villains, my improvised team took on this massive villain, all of the fighting ended, and I learned that ten of me and Kacchan's schoolmates were all killed, only to see them get resurrected by a few students from the team opposing the U.A. team."

Mitsuki, as well as Inko who heard what her son had said, looked beyond shocked with all that had apparently gone down during the city-wide villain attack that took place today. Straightening himself out and up where he sat on the sofa, Izuku remarked, "At this point, I just feel like using the four or so days that I have off from U.A. to sleep the entire time. I am just simply too tired to try doing much of anything else, thinking included."

Mitsuki turned her attention over to where Inko was still fretting over Bakugo, who was actually asleep in the armchair he collapsed into. The ashy-haired woman was surprised with what both her son and her boyfriend had gone through over the course of the day today. Normally a brash and bold person, Mitsuki currently found herself actually intending to let things be taken easy for the next few days or so. "_Yeah_, _both my bae and Katsuki have been thrown through the shitter_," Mitsuki thought, "_Letting them take it easy for the next few days sounds like a plan_. _The two of them deserve nothing less_." With a bit of a gentle smile, Mitsuki looked back to where her son was passed out, before returning her gaze to the green-eyed boy who now sat leaning back passed out in the sofa, right by her side.

Giving a gentle shake of her head, Mitsuki thought, "_Besides_, _there is no way that what happened today can be topped_. _I got a feeling that all of the boys_' _main struggles are behind them now, and th__at things will be nothing but smooth sailing for them from here on out_."

* * *

The surviving members of the PLF's command structure gathered together in an abandoned warehouse somewhere on the outskirts of the city. They were mostly trying to lick wounds and regroup. Re-Destro, now wearing a fresh suit since his old one was ripped to shreds when he used his one-hundred percent form, had a particularly somber look on his face as he addressed the rest of the Front's surviving command structure.

Taking in a solemn breath, Re-Destro said, "Truly today did not go in our favor. We should have been more prepared, should have taken a bit more time before we made our move to liberate the masses from the unjust laws that restrict true freedom."

Scoffing in an annoyed tone, Skeptic remarked, "Things would have gone a lot better if we had waited the remaining two months for Shigaraki to be ready. But no, no he had to listen to you when you said some manner of bullshit about how the heroes would be vulnerable today and that made things perfect to strike." Crossing his arms over his chest, Skeptic gave his superior a very disappointed look. "And now look where your hubris had brought us. Most of the PLF, including Shigaraki himself, was killed today. The lot of us here in this warehouse are all that we were able to track down and scrounge back up after the survivors scattered."

Re-Destro, holding up a hand to cut off further argument, made Skeptic take pause. "Surly you overestimate my fault here, Skeptic. We all share equal blame here, as none of us are perfect." Straightening himself out, the former MLA leader said as he sounded like he was going to just casually go over some casual points of business, "Now then, since our beloved Grand Commander fell valiantly today, we are down a leader. Thus it falls to me to assume the mantle and lead the rest of us into a brighter future."

Skeptic, as he face-palmed, sighed, "Oh, you have _got_ to be kidding me…"

Re-Destro moved to stand (or sit in his special wheelchair) in front of the rest of the surviving command structure of the Front so that he could address them. "As our first priority," Re-Destro began, "I say that we should look into finding what other survivors had scattered away after our ultimately foiled attack on the-"

The villain was cut off, and he and everyone else turned around to see who was making that noise, when all of them heard someone slowly clapping, as if giving sarcastic applause. As such, the villains saw an early to mid-twenties male adult, dressed in a casual outfit that was still top end, like a formal business suit. He wore sunglasses, so none of the villains were able to see what his eyes looked like. All they could tell about him was that he was fair-skinned and that he had dishwater blonde hair in a messy mop long enough to reach halfway down his shoulder blades.

"The boss…" began the mysterious young adult when he saw he got all of the villains' attention, speaking to them in a tone of warning, "…Is very displeased."

"You're an agent of our mysterious benefactor," Spinner remarked where he stood off to the side with Dabi and Toga, drawing an affirming nod from the young agent.

The young agent pulled out a watermelon dum-dum pop and unwrapped it as he said with something of a sneer, "Which one of you idiots is that Tomura Shigaraki fellow?"

With a troubled sigh, Re-Destro explained, "Shigaraki, who was the exalted Grand Commander of the Paranormal Liberation Front, was unfortunately killed in our attack on the city today. As such, it fell to me to ever so humbly assume the mantle of the Front's new Grand Commander."

"Bullshit on you being humble," Skeptic muttered under his breath, too quietly for anyone to clearly hear what he had said.

The agent gave Re-Destroy a wry look, one that showed that his interest had barely been piqued. "Very well, then. Since Shigaraki is dead now, perhaps you, Mr. New Leader of the Villains, could tell me where I can find that Rikiya Yotsubashi bastard who's in the Front with you and the rest of your little fuck buddies here." Some of the villains weren't exactly sure what to make of how the benefactor's agent was talking to them, the attitude he was taken to using while talking to them here. But since he was an agent of the mysterious benefactor, there was practically nothing that they could do to remedy his tone with them.

Re-Destro, his eyes a bit wide with surprise, gestured to himself. "…Actually, I'm Rikiya Yotsubashi. You need me for something?"

Cocking his head to the side, the agent said with a slight hint of annoyance in his tone, "_You_'_re_ that Rikiya Yotsubashi guy that I had been told to find?" Turning to look at the rest of the villains, the agent said, "Is this one here for real?"

"Yeah, that really is the guy that you're looking for," Dabi said while pointing at Re-Destro, with all of the other villains nodding in confirmation.

The agent turned back to face Rikiya. The air, tone and expression that the agent was giving off had a slight hint of dangerousness to it. "…You don't say." With his left hand on his hip, the agent, with a casual gesture, pointed right at Re-Destro. This action had caught the handicapped villain's attention. Rikiya looked like he was going to speak, given that he opened his mouth.

*BLAM*

The other surviving members of the Front's command structure all jumped back with shock when they heard the gunshot, saw Re-Destro suddenly slump forward in his seat, a gaping, oozing gunshot wound in the back of his head as a slightly blood-spattered agent who also was working for the mysterious benefactor stood behind the now dead Rikiya Yotsubashi. There was a Sig Sauer 9mm, its barrel smoking, in the assassin's right hand.

Turning his attention to the remaining villains, the first agent said, "The boss is _very_ unhappy with what Rikiya had done."

"Oh, I get it," Mr. Compress said to the agent while pointing to Re-Destro's dead body as it sat in the specialized wheelchair, "It was Re-Destro's idea to carry out the attack today, so it was him who our generous fellow wanted to see dead."

Shrugging indifferently, the first agent said, "In a way." Pointing to the villains, the first agent said, "You all are _very_ lucky that the mess that this one here-" the first agent paused to point at Re-Destro's dead body, "-Had caused was cleaned up the way that it was. The boss said that otherwise, all of your lives would have been forfeit." Giving the villains a knowing look, the first agent said, "To give you all an idea of what I mean…"

The first agent then snapped his right fingers, and suddenly a bunch of other agents working for the benefactor, all of them armed with guns, came out of hiding, all of their weapons aimed at Dabi and the others. The villains knew that they held no advantage here, that the first agent and his fellows held all the cards. Dabi, with his hands held at about eye level in a clear gesture of surrender, simply asked, "So what does your boss want to do with us now?"

"Believe it or not, the boss is a forgiving, benevolent man," the first agent explained casually, "He is willing to give you lot another chance. All that he really wanted to do to punish your organization was for me to make sure that your fellow Rikiya Yotsubashi here was properly punished for his monumentally massive screw-up today." Turning to leave, the first agent said, "We'll be getting in contact with you guys soon. Oh, and since Rikiya here was your group's new leader before I had him snuffed out on the boss's orders, you all had better get to electing a new leader for your group."

The agents of the mysterious benefactor took their leave, allowing the villains to remain alone. It was just the six of them; Dabi, Spinner, Toga, Twice, Mr. Compress and Skeptic. Looking to the other five, Dabi said, "You…guys mind if I take the mantle?" None of the others wanted to argue with the blue flame villain, thus it was that Dabi became the new leader. "Alright dudes," Dabi began, "First order of business is that I'm reforming the League of Villains, moving the six of us into said newly reformed League, and then disbanding the Front. Sound good?"

None of the other five villains wanted to argue, and Skeptic even said that he wanted to see what things were like in the League of Villains compared to the Meta Liberation Army. Nodding once in a manner to show that he was glad everyone was on board, Dabi said, "Good. Now then, what we have to do now is to lay down a couple of ground rules."

END, CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Author's notes;

And with this chapter, the 'Team battle arc' is now officially over. Things had gotten pretty extreme over the last few chapters, but if you think that the troubles for Izuku and friends are all behind them now, even more so since a good number of notable named villains are now straight up dead, then think again. The mysterious benefactor will be on the move in the next few arcs, and there's the fact that there is a newly reformed League of Villains working for him. But don't let that cause you all too much worry.

In fact, the next arc will be something of a breather, as it'll be focusing a bit on the romantic aspect of this story. The relationship between Izuku and Mitsuki will get some more love shown towards it, to be sure. However, other parings that were made over the course of this story will also get some spotlight here and there.

There's the Ojiro and Hagakure paring that first appeared back as early as chapter one, first off. Also, there's the fact that Todoroki and Bakugo managed to get together with their respective crushes in 1-B, those being Reiko and Pony. Tokoyami and Tsuyu got together, and the fact that I hadn't yet done much with them is part of why their pairing will receive some more work and spotlight sometime in the next arc, actually. And let's not forget that two certain idiots who hang out with Bakugo managed to catch the eyes of some girls, so they'll be getting some focus as well in the next arc.

As for the next arc's name, it not only fits the theme of focusing more on the romance aspect of this story, but I bet that a lot of you will get the reference. I'll be seeing you guys later in the next chapter, which will be the beginning of the 'Romance Dawn arc'.


	44. Chapter 44

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter forty-four: Eri's crush

It had been at least a few days since the massive villain attack on the city that resulted in massive damage. If it had not been for so many allies of hero society being there to help the heroes of Japan fight off the forces of the villains, then surly things would have been even worse. There were even a few students from U.A. High School, the top hero academy in Japan, who had been killed by villains during the massive siege on the city. However, a group representing a normal public high school over in the United States was visiting at the time of the attack. Four of the American high school students, all four of them being Sacred Heritage quirk users, were able to do what's nothing short of a total miracle; return the fallen U.A. students back to life.

Over in the main area of the dorm building for class 1-A, the various students of classes 1-A and 1-B, along with the Big Three, were all gathered as the hosting class was throwing a party to celebrate the downfall of the villains, as well as the resurrection of those who fell during all of the fighting. Off to the one side in the common area, Shinso was showing some pictures that he had on his phone to Izuku, Juzo and Tamaki, the last of those three looking a bit pale-skinned due to being one of those who fell in battle but was returned to life.

"Oh, in this one Eri's pretending that she's Sakaki," Shinso said with a hint of amusement as she showed the boys a picture of Eri wearing a cat-eared headband while she had a pillow shoved up her shirt to make it look like she was chubby. Sliding over to the next photo, which showed Eri crouching down like a frog while a long strip of gum tape was hanging out of her mouth, Shinso said, "And here Eri's pretending that she's Tsuyu."

"Heh, that's adorable," Tamaki remarked, amused by how the seven-year-old girl was pretending to be various girls in U.A.'s hero course. Shinso showed a few more photos of Eri pretending to be hero course girls at U.A., and as he was doing so Bakugo came walking over.

Curious about what the boys were doing, the explosive teen asked, "The hell's going on here?"

"Oh, Kacchan, you won't believe this," Izuku said, "But Shinso has a bunch of pictures of Eri dressed up as some of the girls here at U.A. I think Shinso even got a picture of Eri dressed up as Pony." Nodding in confirmation, Shinso scrolled through his photos and found a picture of Eri wearing a headband that had two big horns, clearly made from the cardboard tubes that paper towels come on, attached. Bakugo couldn't help but let out a snort, finding amusement in the little girl pretending to be his girlfriend.

Looking over to Shinso, Bakugo asked him while pointing to his phone, "Why is she dressed up in so many little outfits to pretend to be various girls here at school?"

Giving a shrug, Shinso replied as he gently shook his head, "No clue, Bakugo. I just figure it's some little girl thing. Although she did tell me one thing." The boys gathered around Shinso all leaned a bit closer as the brainwasher explained, "Eri told me that she's only dressing up as girls who are 'pretty' in her definition."

Tamaki let out a chuckle that showed he found Eri's reasoning to be adorable. Juzo, with a curious look on his face, turned to face Shinso and asked, "And what, pray tell, is Eri's way of defining what makes a girl 'pretty'?"

"If a girl has a boyfriend or not," Shinso replied, "If yes, then Eri says the girl in question counts as pretty. If no, then the girl in question does not count."

Bakugo snorted back a good bit of laughter. "Holy crap, imagine if she tells a girl to her face that the girl ain't pretty due to lacking a boyfriend! That would be ep-"

"Eri actually did do that to Yaoyorozu earlier today," Shinso replied, "While Eri herself was going about while eating from a dish of mushrooms in order to pretend to be Juzo's classmate Kinoko for some odd reason."

The ashy-haired boy, after laughing a bit at Yaoyorozu's expense, nodded a few times in understanding. "Ah yes. Pony's classmate Shrooms is now an item with Kirishima." Bakugo gave an amused smirk. "About damn time he got a girl to see that he's one hell of a dude, too."

As the boys were talking over the cute photos that Shinso had taken of Eri dressed up as various U.A. girls, Aizawa came walking over, with Eri following along behind him. Having heard the boys' chuckling, the underground hero figured that they were laughing over what seemed to be whatever it was that his foster son was showing to the rest of the group. He got the boys' attention before saying, "Shinso, what are you showing the others here?"

"The various pictures I took of Eri dressed up so she could pretend to be various girls here at U.A.," the brainwasher replied while pointing to Eri, "I figured that they would find it to be as adorable as the two of us did."

"I have a very important reason why I'm trying to be like the pretty girls!" Eri insisted, a bit of an annoyed pout on her face.

The older boys, as well as Aizawa, all turned to look at the young girl. "…Oh?" Shinso said, an amused look on his face, "And what might that reason be, Little Horn?" Eri, embarrassed that she was being put on the spot, took a step back, hanging her head a bit as she poked the ends of her index fingers together.

Shinso, Aizawa and the others were all waiting for Eri to give a response before she finally, and in a clearly timid manner, gave her answer. "Well, the pretty girls all have boyfriends, right? I thought that if I was like the pretty girls, then the boy I like would want to be my boyfriend."

"WHAT?!" Aizawa exclaimed instantly, surprise clear on his face as the boys turned to look at him. Some of them chuckled, saying that Aizawa was freaking out just like an overprotective dad who just found out his daughter is now interested in boys. That…basically describes what's going on here to a T, you know; Aizawa did take Eri in as a foster daughter, and he's just now hearing that Eri's interested in boys now.

Gently shaking his head, Aizawa looked down to Eri and said, "I…need to talk to you alone later, Eri. There are a few things you're needing to know." Looking up to the boys, Aizawa said, "Anyway, Shinso, I just wanted to find you and let you, as well as Midoriya and Bakugo since they're here as well, know that the class will be visiting some places tomorrow to learn first-hand about the kinds of things pro heroes do to better society that does not involve punching a villain right in the face."

Shinso nodded in understanding, although both Izuku and Bakugo looked curious. "What kind of places, Aizawa-sensei?" Izuku asked.

"Well first off, we're going to visit a food donation center," Aizawa explained, "Where pro heroes occasionally volunteer to help sort out donated food that's then distributed to families that are struggling to otherwise put food on the table. After that, we'll be visiting the local autistic children's school, where pro heroes donate time to help with the kids there." The underground hero crossed his arms over his chest before adding, "As a side note, we'll be seeing Fat Gum at the food donation center, and Ryukyu at the autistic children's school."

"Oh yeah," Izuku remarked, "Fat Gum is a leading figure in the cause of trying to eliminate hunger in Japan by assisting low-income families. And Ryukyu is the only pro hero known to regularly assist with helping families that have autistic children."

Aizawa nodded in confirmation. "…You know, if Endeavor decided to champion a cause rather than focus solely on resolving cases, he might have been able to dethrone All Might as number one before the big oaf had to step down and retire. Todoroki's father should have taken a cue out of Fat Gum and Ryukyu's respective books." The underground hero turned around and left, although Eri stayed around just long enough to wave good-bye to the boys before she turned back around and dashed to catch up with Aizawa.

After the pair were gone, Shinso turned to look at all of the boys. "…Heh. I wonder which girl Eri will decide to dress up as next."

* * *

The following morning, Aizawa, plus Eri who Aizawa had to bring along due to not being able to find a sitter, had all twenty-five of his students at a local food donation center. "…This brings back memories," Uraraka remarked as she looked around, "Before my parents' construction company finally got its life back thanks to that commercial we made in conjunction with some pro heroes, my parents would have to occasionally come here."

"Oh yeah, your family used to struggle financially," Mina remarked to the gravity girl, getting an affirmative nod out of her. Mina turned to look to Yaoyorozu, who still had a little bit of paleness to her but it was wearing off. "I don't suppose you ever had to struggle with finances, did you?"

Yaoyorozu wore a curious look on her face as Mina addressed her. "…Umm, I'm sorry but I don't see how it's possible for one to struggle with money."

"Well maybe you ought to try and pull out that silver spoon that's shoved firmly up your ass," Mina said dryly, "That may help you see things from the point of view of others." Yaoyorozu was about to snap at Mina but was cut off before getting even one word out when Aizawa got everyone's attention. Standing next to Aizawa was Fat Gum, and somewhat hiding behind Aizawa's legs was Eri.

With all of his students' eyes on him, Aizawa said while gesturing to the BMI Hero, "Now listen up, brats. Fat Gum here will explain what all goes on when working a shift at the food donation center here." Aizawa noticed that all of his students were looking at Fat Gum kind of weird. Turning to see what was up, Aizawa saw that there was a curious look on Fat Gum's face. "Is something the matter, Fat Gum?"

"Why do some of your students look a bit pale, Shouta?" the BMI Hero asked, a hint of concern clear in his words.

"I'll explain it to you later," Aizawa replied, "But rest assured it's nothing to worry about."

Accepting Aizawa's answer for what it was, Fat Gum turned to look at class 1-A and began to go over what all goes down when working at the food donation center. As Aizawa and Eri watched all this unfold, Aizawa heard Eri giggle cutely. The underground hero, with an amused look on his face, looked down at his foster daughter, gave her nudge on her shoulder to get her to look up at him. "Something amusing to you, Eri?"

The little horned girl pointed to Fat Gum, who was in the middle of lecturing to class 1-A. "He's like a big, friendly teddy bear." The small smirk on Aizawa's face grew a little; part of the theme Fat Gum was going for was to be as kid-friendly as possible. If Eri's comment were anything to go by, then the BMI hero was succeeding in that regard.

* * *

After the food donation center trip, Aizawa took his students over to the autistic children's school so that his brats could donate some time at to play with the kids there. Upon walking in, Aizawa was greeted to the sight of some young kids playing around. He had also gotten the attention of two women who worked at the center, as well as Ryukyu who was talking to the two women at the time. The Dragoon Hero was dressed casually, as she did not expect to have to do hero work until later in the day.

"Oh, you must be the U.A. teacher who's bringing a class of hero-course students to see the kids here," the first center teacher said, "I bet that the children here would love to see future heroes like that."

"Yeah, I just wanted to make sure you had everything ready," Aizawa replied, "I also had my students dress up in their hero outfits like you asked."

The center teachers and Ryukyu nodded in the affirmative before Aizawa went to the front door and opened it. He stuck his head out and called for his class to come in. Slowly, all twenty-five students in class 1-A filed into the building, with Eri following along behind Shinso. Once all of the heroes-in-training, all dressed in their respective hero costumes, were inside, the center teachers and Ryukyu got the children at the center to all come out. The kids ranged in age from four to ten, and there were roughly an equal amount of boys and girls, although an exact count would reveal that there were slightly more girls.

The kids were clearly excited to see so many costumed heroes, running up to them and crowding the students of class 1-A. Aizawa pulled Eri back before the high schoolers were swarmed, as he did not want his foster daughter getting caught up in that. As the center teachers tried to help the hero-course students control the kids, Ryukyu walked over to Aizawa and Eri, who stood off to the side of everything.

"I see you brought a kid yourself," the Dragoon Hero remarked.

"Well I couldn't find a sitter for her," Aizawa replied, "Also, I think that Eri may be able to improve her socialization skills if she were to play with some of the kids here."

Ryukyu nodded in understanding and agreement with the pro hero. "Yes, and many of the kids here still have trouble socializing sometimes." A sympathetic smile appeared on Ryukyu's face. "Although there is one boy here who has made considerable progress. Tsuyu may have told you, given that she's your student."

The underground hero recognized right away what Ryukyu was getting at. "Yeah, I actually heard about it while Toshinori and I were visiting families to tell them about the dorm system at U.A. While at the Asui residence, I met Tsuyu's younger siblings, and Beru Asui told me that her son Samidare is autistic." Leaning to his side, Aizawa actually saw Samidare, standing next to Tsuyu, as he blew raspberries at Mineta whenever the lewd teen tried to say even a single word. "…He's not very sociable towards Mineta, though."

Looking over to see what Aizawa was talking about, Ryukyu, with a bit of a suspicious look on her face as she regarded the short-statured teen, turned back to face Aizawa and said, "Yeah, Tsuyu told me how she trained both of her younger siblings to be hostile towards some boy in her class named Mineta." Crossing her arms over her chest, the Dragoon Hero said, "So that boy with the purple balls for hair is the little pervert, huh?"

"Y…yes," Aizawa replied, both shocked and totally unsurprised by how Tsuyu had apparently trained her younger siblings to be hostile towards Mineta. Looking back over, Aizawa saw that Mineta was still having trouble getting even one word out without Samidare blowing raspberries at him. Some of the other 1-A students, such as Bakugo and most of the girls especially Mina, were laughing their asses off as Mineta was very clearly on the losing end of a battle against an autistic child.

Ryukyu gave a 'what can you do' kind of shrug while she wore a gently amused smile. "Aside from what Tsuyu has trained him to do, Samidare's really improved on his socialization skills. From what Tsuyu has told me, he gets along quite well with your student Tokoyami, as well as this one boy in class 1-B named Artemis." Aizawa nodded in agreement; it would make sense that Tokoyami, who was dating Tsuyu, would be good with Samidare. And Aizawa did hear of how Sekijiro's student Norio was a sort of mentor figure to the boy.

Suddenly, Ryukyu's face lit up, showing that she just had an idea. "Hey, you said that you were hoping to get Eri here to develop socialization skills by playing with the children here, right? Well why don't we try that?"

"Exactly what I was thinking," Aizawa replied. Looking down at his foster daughter, Aizawa said, "Hey Eri, would you-" Aizawa stopped short when he saw the nervous, blushing look on Eri's face as she was looking over in the direction that Samidare was in. "…Eri?" Aizawa said, getting the girl to look up at him.

Pointing at Samidare, Eri said, "Th-That's him, dad! That's the cute boy! The one I want to have be my boyfriend!" Both Aizawa and Ryukyu, going wide-eyed with surprise, turned to look in the direction in which Samidare was still blowing raspberries at Mineta.

Looking back and forth between the two kids, Ryukyu said after settling to look at Aizawa, "Is she being serious, Aizawa? She has a crush on Samidare?"

Looking down at Eri as she furiously nodded her head in the affirmative, Aizawa turned to look at Ryukyu and said, "It…would appear to be the case."

"Oh my goodness, this is just precious!" Ryukyu gushed, "Oh, I wonder if Tsuyu knows that her little brother has a secret ad-"

"WILL YOU STOP THAT?!"

Aizawa, Ryukyu and Eri all looked in the direction of the 1-A students right around the time Samidare, who now had a freaked-out look on his face, cried out as he hid behind his older sister's legs while covering his ears with his hands. The adults came over, with Eri following behind them, as some of the students began to berate Mineta. "What happened here?" Aizawa demanded, clearly unamused.

Jerking a thumb at Mineta, Bakugo said, "Grape Head here decided to yell at Frog Face's little brother, which as you can see resulted in making him freak out."

"Young man, what is wrong with you?" Ryukyu scolded at Mineta, very clearly looking disappointed, "You are never suppose to yell at any of the kids here! You need to apologize to him when he calms back down!"

Mineta, as he pointed an accusing finger at Samidare, defended, "He wouldn't stop blowing raspberries at me, and nobody else was exactly quick to come to my-" Mineta was cut off when Eri, wearing an unhappy pouting expression, ran up to Mineta and kicked him surprisingly hard in his holy land, scoring a critical hit that floored the short-statured teen. As Mineta laid prone, Tsuyu kicked him in the butt (fairly hard) once for good measure. Tsuyu then spat on Mineta.

* * *

After class 1-A got back to U.A., Aizawa called Tsuyu to the homeroom class. When she got there, Tsuyu saw that Eri was standing behind Aizawa, and a curious and amused-looking Hizashi was also present. "Asui, I need to discuss something with out about what went on at the center we were at earlier today," Aizawa began as he gestured for the frog-like girl to walk over a bit closer to him and the others.

"Is this about how I kicked Mineta in his butt before I spat on him kero?" Tsuyu asked.

"Oh no, not at all," Aizawa remarked casually, "It's about Eri's behavior concerning how she's dressed up like you and some of the other girls so that she could pretend to be whoever she dressed up as. Shinso told me that he had told you about it after he showed you the picture of Eri pretending to be you."

Tsuyu nodded a few times to show that she was following along. "Yes, I think that it's kind of cute, not to mention flattering when I was told Eri was pretending to be me because she says that I'm pretty."

"But you are pretty!" Eri said, getting Tsuyu to look at her, "That big black bird says so!"

"Yeah, she's basing her assessment off the fact that you're dating Tokoyami," Aizawa said, "I normally don't reference the personal lives of my students, but in this case it's actually relevant because the reason Eri has dressed up as you and a few other girls is because all of the girls she has dressed up as have boyfriends, and Eri figures that it may help her get a boy that she has a crush on to want to be her boyfriend."

The frog-like girl giggled a bit in an amused manner. "That's pretty adorable, Aizawa-sensei."

Letting out a resigned sigh, Aizawa said, "Yes, well here's the thing, Asui. As it turns out, the boy that Eri has a crush on is your little brother."

That made Tsuyu take pause, a surprised look of mild shock on her face. "…Yeah, I was hoping that you might be able to convince Eri to hold off on trying to pursue romance in general for the time being, as I really don't want her trying to do that sort of stuff right now given how old she is," Aizawa said, "Given that it's your little brother that Eri seem so keen on." Tsuyu seemed to get what her teacher was talking about, and as such she turned to address Eri.

Clearing her throat a bit before she began, Tsuyu said, "Listen, Eri. I think it's really cute that you like my little brother Samidare. I'm certain that he'd be flattered by the notion as well kero. But I have to agree with Aizawa-sensei that you trying to make Samidare your boyfriend right now may not be the best thing in the world."

"Aww!" Eri said in a tone of complaint, "Why not? He's super nice and smart and stuff, and he looks nice, and he's not a doofus or anything!"

Tsuyu nodded along as Eri explained her reasoning. "Yes, Samidare is a nice kid, and I'm glad to have him as my little brother. But not only does Aizawa-sensei have a point on how you're not ready to find romance like I have, but I'm certain Samidare is nowhere near ready for trying to find romance himself. He's still got some issues when it comes to struggling with social cues, and he freaks out easily if loud noises sound off near him. Samidare still needs a lot of time until he's ready for the part of socializing that involves dating."

Eri looked a bit dejected as she looked to the floor in the classroom. After looking at the floor for a bit, the horned girl looked back up at Tsuyu and asked, "Well, when he is ready, can you let me know so I can then hide a love letter in his locker?"

Tsuyu let out an amused chuckle before replying, "Sure thing, Eri. I'm sure that, when Samidare is ready to date, you'll be a great girlfriend for him kero. But it's not just him who needs more time to be ready. You yourself should also wait a bit on it." Eri nodded a few times in agreement to show that she would listen to the frog-like girl.

Aizawa smiled in an appreciative kind of amusement; Tsuyu convinced Eri to drop the subject of romance for the time being, but at the same time gave her hope that she can pick the subject back up again in the future, preferably when Eri's old enough for dating to be a subject to consider seriously for her. …Preferably when Eri reaches high school age. Turning to look at Tsuyu, the class 1-A homeroom teacher said, "Thank you, Asui. That will be all."

"So wait," Hizashi said, getting Aizawa to turn to look at him, "You _aren_'_t_ going to discipline her for kicking Mineta in his butt and then spitting on him?"

"I see no reason to," Aizawa replied casually, shrugging as he did so.

Shrugging indifferently, Hizashi said, "…Yeah, I'm guessing that chances are the little dude did something to deserve it. I mean, this _is_ Mineta that we're talking about here." Aizawa, as well as Tsuyu, all nodded in agreement. Seeing everyone being unified in that respect made Eri smile, as she liked seeing it when everyone was getting along.

* * *

The next morning in the kitchen area of the 1-A dorm building, Tsuyu was sitting at the island counter, eating a bowl of cereal, as she talked with the other 1-A girls. By this point, those who were resurrected had lost all of the paleness they had as a side effect of being returned to life. Tsuyu was one such person, as was both Yaoyorozu and Hatsume. As the 1-A girls all ate, the frog-like girl was telling them about her discussion with their homeroom teacher yesterday.

"Oh my goodness, that sounds adorable!" Mina squealed in an excited tone, "Eri has a crush on your little brother!"

"Yeah, but I agree with Aizawa-sensei on how Eri needs to wait a while before trying to pursue anything with Samidare," Tsuyu remarked, "Not to mention how Samidare himself still has a bit of work to do on his social skills." After chewing and swallowing a spoonful of her cereal, Tsuyu added, "Although I bet he'd be flattered to know that a girl likes him kero."

"Well now," Yaoyorozu remarked, "Now I feel even more inadequate." Hanging her head in shame, the ponytailed girl remarked, "Even a girl about a decade younger than me has greater luck in the boys department. I haven't even been able to get one boy to notice me."

"Oh, about that Momo," Sakaki said, "Shinso asked me to have you look outside. He said he's helping a friend of his in class 1-B with something." Curious, Yaoyorozu got up from the island counter table and walked over to where Sakaki specified. Walking out the door to a fenced-in yard area, Yaoyorozu was shocked to see Yosetsu Awase of class 1-B, dressed in a full mariachi outfit and holding an acoustic guitar, standing right there. Shinso, with Izuku and Juzo, stood behind the welding quirk user, all of them also dressed as mariachi and holding mini trumpets.

When the ponytailed girl saw the boys, Yosetsu started playing mariachi music on his guitar, with the three boys playing their instruments behind him to play along with the theme. Yosetsu then began to sing a mariachi song that clearly had a romantic slant to it, and at one point he spun the guitar he was holding around, given that it was attached to the guitar strap that he was wearing. By the time that he was done singing, Yosetsu did one last spin of his guitar, breathing a bit hard more out of nervousness than anything.

The 1-A girls aside from Yaoyorozu all cheered, some of them extremely amused by what was clearly a grand romantic gesture on Yosetsu's part in an attempt to appeal to their ponytailed classmate. "So, what do you think, Momo?" Yosetsu asked, clearly blushing with embarrassment as he was nervous of how the wealthy girl would react, "I'm in love with you. Will you go out with me?"

END, CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Author's notes;

Well, this has been the first chapter of the 'Romance Dawn arc'. I wanted to do a chapter with Eri having a crush on a boy, but I wanted to go in the direction of Samidare as opposed to Kota, who many apparently see as Eri's go-to boyfriend. I also wanted to work with how Yosetsu has a crush on Yaoyorozu, as I have a way to make that relevant later on down the line in this story. I also wanted to go for that cliffhanger, where Yosetsu asks Yaoyorozu to go out with him. You all will see Yaoyorozu's answer in the next chapter.

Speaking of the next chapter, it will focus on some of the boys in 1-A getting cozy with their respective girlfriends, as well as see more couples solidified. It will also see Kirishima ask the other boys for advice/help. You'll see what I mean in the next chapter.


	45. Chapter 45

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter forty-five: How do I boyfriend?

Izuku and his mother Inko were having dinner over at the Bakugos place with their long-time family friends, Mitsuki and her son Katsuki. The topic of the conversation soon shifted to what Izuku and Katsuki had recently done with their class over at U.A. The boys apparently were taken on a field trip of sorts to see what sort of work pro heroes do that doesn't involve punching a villain in the face basically. They went over helping out at a food donation center under the eye of the pro hero Fat Gum, then how they and their class donated time at an autistic children's school, which was a center of sorts. At that center, they had met the pro hero Ryukyu.

Bakugo was just finishing up a story he had from when class 1-A was at the second location. "And that's when Frog Face kicked Grape Head in the ass before she spat on him," the ashy-haired boy said, an amused smirk on his face, "Believe it or not, Aizawa-sensei is not going to give Frog Face any grief over how she abused Grape Head."

"That…sounds a bit extreme on your classmate's part, Katsuki," Inko remarked, her tone showing that she was mildly surprised that not only did Tsuyu Asui act in such a manner, but that the class 1-A homeroom teacher was going to let her get away with it.

Izuku, with a bit of an unsure look on his face, remarked, "Well mom, in Tsuyu's defense, Mineta _did_ essentially bully her little brother since he yelled at him." Rubbing the back of his head, the green-haired boy added, "…Plus, I'm fairly certain that it has to do with the fact that it was _Mineta_ who Tsuyu kicked in the butt and then spat on. Also, Aizawa-sensei had brought Eri along, and it was Eri who started it by kicking Mineta right between his legs."

"That little girl sounds like and absolute treasure, sweetness," Mitsuki remarked, sounding genuinely touched by the behavior of the little horned girl that was taken in by the underground hero as a foster child. As Mitsuki was slicing a small bit of her steak she had on her plate off with a steak knife, the dinner party heard a knock at the door. Curious, Bakugo got up to go see who it was, with a similarly curious Izuku getting up to go see who it was as well.

The two boys got to the front door, with Bakugo being the one to open it. To the collective surprise of both Bakugo and Izuku, it was their classmate Kirishima, who had the decency to look embarrassed for having interrupted what was clearly dinner time. "Heh, sorry to bother you right now like this, dude," the crimson-haired boy said as he addressed Bakugo, "But I'm in a bit of a bind here." Giving a quick glance to Izuku, Kirishima added, "You might be able to help me as well, Izuku."

"Well something is obviously up, Kirishima," Izuku replied, sensing that Kirishima was urgently in need of help, "What do you need?"

Kirishima inhaled through his nose before exhaling. Clapping his hands together in a prayer-like gesture, Kirishima said, "Can you guys give me tips on how I can boyfriend?"

Both Izuku and Bakugo looked at Kirishima with confused looks, the latter especially so as he was once again confused by the behavior of one of his friends in his 'squad'. "…What are you on about now, Kirishima?" Bakugo asked.

"You guys know how I have finally at last got a girlfriend, right?" the crimson-haired boy began.

"Oh yeah," Izuku replied as both he and Bakugo nodded in the affirmative, "I got it from Juzo that you're now dating his classmate Kinoko."

"Yeah, well here's the thing," Kirishima said, an embarrassed look on his face, "I…have no idea what to do." A hint of pleading entering his expression, he went on, "I never thought that getting a girlfriend would actually happen to me. I have no idea what to do! Worse yet, Kinoko wants to do a date this Friday, and I have no idea how dates work! What if I screw things up, dudes?"

Kirishima would have continued on with his freak-out, but he was stopped when Bakugo reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder, getting his crimson-haired friend to calm down. "…I'll get Pony to convince Shrooms to make it a double-date," the explosive teen remarked, "She and I will go with you and Shrooms to wherever. Whatever you see me do with Pony should give you a few cues on what to do with Shrooms."

Izuku looked surprise that Bakugo, of all people, would come up with such a plan; did being in a relationship with the half-American girl really help to smooth out his rougher edges? Either way, the green-haired cinnamon roll was liking how his childhood friend was developing as a person, and hoped to see more maturing in this regard out of him. Kirishima, for his part, seemed both touched and relieved that Bakugo was looking out for him. "…That would actually be a big help, Baku-bro," Kirishima replied, thankful for Bakugo's help.

Patting Kirishima on the shoulder, Bakugo replied, "I'll talk to you more about it later. For now, we'd really like to get back to dinner."

"Oh, sorry again for the interruption," Kirishima replied as he nodded in acknowledgement before he turned around and took his leave, allowing Bakugo and Izuku to go back inside and get back to dinner.

After the boys sat back down at the table, Inko asked what had happened, with Izuku explaining that a classmate of his and Bakugo's simply came by to ask for dating advice. Mitsuki asked if she might be able to provide some help of her own by teaching said friend how to perform the very sex move that she did with her ex-husband that resulted in Katsuki's birth. The explosive teen himself snapped at his mother, saying that not only was his friend nowhere near at the point in his relationship to even consider sex, but that talk of sex during dinner was not the best thing in the world.

Inko, in a far gentler manner, agreed with Bakugo.

* * *

That Friday was the day of the double-date, where Bakugo would have Kirishima learn from watching him and Pony on how to interact with Kinoko. However, when Bakugo and Kirishima arrived to pick up their respective girlfriends from the class 1-B dorm building, they were both a bit surprised to see two more persons waiting for them; the girls' classmate Reiko Yanagi, and the boys' own classmate Todoroki.

"Umm…yeah, sorry Eijiro," Kinoko said in an embarrassed tone as she poked the ends of her index fingers together, "But I…sort of asked Reiko if she can come along with her boyfriend and make it a double-date so I can watch her example and learn what to do when I'm with you."

Before Kirishima spoke up, Bakugo marched up to Todoroki, threw and arm around his shoulders and led him off to the side to have a private talk with the half-and-half boy. Once he felt that they had enough privacy, the ashy-haired boy gave Todoroki a serious look. "Alright, IcyHot, here's the deal," Bakugo began, "I don't like you, and you don't like me."

"Actually, I don't care about you one way or the other," Todoroki remarked casually.

Bakugo starred at Todoroki silently for a few moments before he continued. "…Okay, I don't like you, and you're indifferent towards me," Bakugo said, "But regardless of all of that, we have to put it all aside and do what we can to help Kirishima here. This is the first date he's ever been on, and I'll be damned if things go sour for him." Pointing his right index finger at Todoroki, the explosive teen said, "You with me, IcyHot?"

To Bakugo's interest, Todoroki cracked a mildly amused smirk. "…I never thought I'd see the day that you'd go so this far for a friend, Bakugo."

Bakugo scowled a bit, unamused at how he was apparently amusing Todoroki. "Just don't mess things up, alright?" With that, the two boys broke the huddle and went back over to where the girls and Kirishima were waiting. "…Anyway, girls," Bakugo began, "I'm guessing that there's someplace specific that you'd like me, Kirishima and IcyHot to take you all to?"

"Oh, there's this movie that the girls here and I all want to see," Reiko remarked, drawing agreeing nods out of Pony and Kinoko. Taking that cue, the boys proceeded to take the girls to the movie theater to go watch that movie.

* * *

After watching a romantic comedy movie at the theaters, the six teens decided to go grab lunch somewhere. Thanks to connections that Todoroki had, he was able to get the party a reservation at a restaurant that was a few steps above a simple fast food joint. They ended up going to a nice Italian place in the same neighborhood that, during the monster siege, was threatened by some of the warmongers, who also tried to attack the bank there.

"Well this is certainly a pleasant surprise," the person working the welcome booth said as the six teens entered the Italian restaurant. Addressing Todoroki specifically, the restaurant employee went on, "Even though we got your call ahead of time, I'm still rather amazed that that someone from Endeavor's family would come in to enjoy the finest dining experience that any place here in the city can offer. Rest assured that we will do what we can here to make your lunch here as much of an experience as possible."

The half-and-half boy nodded in acknowledgement to the man as he showed the group to a table that could seat six. Shortly thereafter the teens got their menus, although Bakugo helped Pony with hers as she still had a little bit of trouble with the Japanese language. Around the time that the teens got their beverages, they heard an adult man's voice call out to them. Looking over to see who was coming by, they saw a well-dressed adult man come over, accompanied by a few men who looked to be business partners of his.

Out of the six teens, only Todoroki seemed to recognize who the lead man was. "Oi, IcyHot," Bakugo said to the dual-natured quirk boy while pointing to the lead man, "You recognize who this joker is?"

"Bakugo, this is Ryoga Yaoyorozu," Todoroki explained, "He's Momo's father."

Bakugo then turned his attention back to who had been revealed as Ryoga Yaoyorozu. The man was a notably handsome, yet at the same time rather serious looking, man around the same age as the parents of various students in U.A.'s classes 1-A and 1-B. Ryoga had his jet black hair combed and slicked back, and he wore a casual dress suit, matching pants, and shiny black shoes that seemed to be polished to perfection.

Bakugo gave the extraordinarily rich man a quick, indifferent glance. "…So you're Ponytail's daddy, huh?"

"He not my dad," Pony remarked, turning to look at Bakugo.

"No, I'm talking about my classmate Pony_tail_," Bakugo clarified as he emphasized the 'tail' part of the nickname he came up with for his wealthy classmate, "Not you, Pony."

Ryoga, with a curious look that held a hint of sternness, brushed off the…interesting…behavior of the heroes-in-training. "I…see," Ryoga remarked.

Gesturing to Todoroki, one of Ryoga's men, a dark brown-haired man who was a bit on the slender side, remarked, "Mr. Yaoyorozu told us that your father turned down the offer he made to him concerning you and Mr. Yaoyorozu's daughter."

Todoroki, with an annoyed look on his face, looked at Ryoga and his men while gesturing to Reiko. "I am with my girlfriend here," Todoroki said, "And I'm perfectly happy with Reiko."

"You shouldn't be so hasty, young man," another one of Ryoga's men, one who had light brown hair and had a bit of a paunch, remarked, "You could bring a lot of good reputation to your father, who don't forget is Japan's number one pro hero, by taking Mr. Yaoyorozu up on his very generous offer."

"I…" Todoroki said as he addressed the man with a paunch, "…Am perfectly happy…with Reiko." It was clear by the dual-natured quirk boy's tone that he was not happy with how the men in front of him and his party were essentially saying that he should dump Reiko and go out with Momo instead. Reiko was also upset, but not growing steadily angry like Todoroki; rather, she was looking close to start crying, partly out of embarrassment and shame. The other four teens at the table, who were all as similarly as upset as Todoroki, could tell how he and Reiko were feeling.

…However, the men were seemingly oblivious to how the teens were feeling. Ryoga was the worst of this example, and what he said next fully soured the dining experience that the teens would have otherwise enjoyed. "Are you sure?" Ryoga asked, "You could do better."

It was at that time that the waiter who was serving the teens' party came by with drink refills, as well as a few appetizers and a bread board. "Here are your appi-Oh!" The waiter stopped short when he noticed Ryoga and his party standing there. "Mr. Yaoyorozu, I take it that you're trying to invite Endeavor's son's party to join you?" the waiter asked.

"Actually," Todoroki said as he stood up, clearly sounding like he was trying to keep a lid on how outraged he felt, "My party and I have all decided that we want to leave now." To the waiter, Todoroki remarked, "We'll still pay for what we've ordered thus far. Please get the check ready for us." The waiter, clearly able to tell that Todoroki was upset, seemed worried that the staff at the restaurant may have been responsible; the manager may even fire the waiter if he feels it could save the restaurant any amount of face.

After Todoroki covered what the teens' party had ordered, the party of six moved to leave, but before they could leave they were held up by the manager of the restaurant, who clearly seemed worried about having upset someone from a rather influential family. Todoroki made it clear that the restaurant and its staff were in no way responsible, it was just another guest at the restaurant had made him and his party uncomfortable, enough so that they all wanted to GTFO of there, although Todoroki did not actually use the phrase 'GTFO'.

Bakugo did, however.

* * *

"Wow, guys," Kirishima remarked, clearly sounding very much unamused, "Yaoyorozu's dad really is a right proper piece of work, isn't he? I'm glad that Yaoyorozu doesn't take after daddy dearest in the least."

Bakugo gave a nod and grunt of agreement. "You got that right, Kirishima. Ponytail's got a lot to answer for when we next see her." With an amused smirk on his face, Bakugo turned to face Todoroki and remarked to, "Hell, if it were me whose shoes he was pissing on rather than you, then I'd probably hit him in the face, either by blasting him with an explosion or just straight up slugging him with a good old fashioned punch."

"Given that he is Japan's wealthiest man, you'd undoubtedly get into a lot of trouble if you did that," Todoroki pointed out. The dual-natured quirk boy looked down at his right hand, which was clenched into a fist. "…Although since I was barely able to keep myself from doing more or less the same, I don't think I'm one to talk."

"Lunch at fancy place was clearly bust," Pony said, "Maybe we try other place instead?"

As the girls, notably a still upset-looking Reiko, were asking about a sweets café that they were interested in, the party of six ran into a party of four of their schoolmates outside of a costume shop. The group of six were surprised to see Izuku and Shinso from the boys' class, and Yosetsu and Juzo from the girls' class, walking out of the costume shop together. Seeing a group of their schoolmates all out like that, the girls greeted the group of four boys.

"Oh, sup Pony, Reiko, Kinoko," Yosetsu greeted as he and Juzo waved hello to three of the girls in their class over at U.A., "Yeah, me and the boys here were returning some mariachi costumes that we rented from here, and after this we have to go return some trumpets and an acoustic guitar that we borrowed from Jiro's folks."

While the girls all nodded in understanding, the boys all looked on in confusion. "…The hell were you, Eye Bags and the other two up to, Deku?" Bakugo asked as he addressed Izuku.

"Oh, Yosetsu wanted some help in doing some big romantic gesture to Yaoyorozu in the hopes he could convince her to go out with him," Izuku began to explain, "As such he asked us to be the backup music players in a mariachi performance he decided to go with."

"We just finished returning the mariachi costumes that we rented from this costume shop here, although we couldn't get the deposit back on the costume I wore since Eri accidentally got some pudding on it while I was taking a shower," Shinso remarked.

"We spent three days practicing the music Yosetsu chose in order to serenade the girl that he has a crush on," Juzo remarked. Shaking his right fist in the air, Juzo yelled, "THREE DAYS!"

Bakugo, Kirishima and Todoroki all were completely lost on not only what Yosetsu did, but how he apparently got Izuku, Shinso and Juzo to help him with it. The girls, for their part, all liked how Yosetsu tried to appeal to a girl with a grand romantic gesture. Giving himself a slap to get back to focus, Todoroki said, "Well, so long as you know what you're doing, Yosetsu."

Nodding in confirmation, Yosetsu said, "Well here's hoping that Momo agrees to go out with me. She hasn't accepted or turned me down yet, so I'm a bit nervous on what her answer will be when she gets back to me." The party of four boys took their leave, with Juzo saying that he would tear Yaoyorozu a new one if she turned Yosetsu down, on the basis that 'he did not want the three days he spent practicing mariachi music to go to waste'.

After the group of four boys had left, the six teens all turned to look at each other. "…You think we should have told them what happened at the restaurant?" Reiko asked.

"I'm pretty sure that they'll find out after we grill Ponytail about how much of an absolute ass her daddy decided to be right in front of you and IcyHot, Ghost Girl," Bakugo replied, drawing nods of agreement out of Todoroki and the others in the group.

* * *

Later, the group of six teens decided to go to a local park to just hang out. Kinoko, who was sitting on a swing, was looking down at her lap as she slowly swung back and forth. On her left was Pony, and on her right was Reiko; the boys went across the street to the convenience store there to grab a few snacks. As the girls hung out and waited for their boyfriends to return, the mushroom expert of class 1-B let out a mildly troubled sigh.

Kinoko's distress did not pass either Pony or Reiko unnoticed. "…A yen for your thoughts, Kinoko?" Reiko asked, trying to sound as helpful and supportive as possible.

The brown-haired girl let out another sigh. "…I'm just worried about Eijiro, is all." Reiko and Pony both turned to look at Kinoko as she explained herself. "I mean, I'm actually dating him now, but I'm afraid that I might screw up somehow and make him lose interest in me. I already came so far, but what if something pops up that ruins all that I've worked towards, all that I've been hoping for since the-"

"You not screw up, Kinoko," Pony said, cutting her friend off. "You are no screw up. You are good person. You mean well. You kind. You honestly care for and love Kirishima. He knows how you mean. I certain he understands where you come from." The half-American girl gave her timid friend a thumbs-up and a smile. "You got this, Kinoko."

"Pony's got a point," Reiko went on, making Kinoko turn to face her. The ghost girl gave a calm, mildly amused smile. "I actually got it from Todoroki that Kirishima is worried that he might screw up with you the way you're worried you might screw up with him. That red-haired doofus is trying to pull out all the stops in being, as Todoroki told me were Kirishima's own words, a 'truly manly gentleman'."

"Gentleman…" Pony said, a hint of curiosity on her face, "…Oh! Bakugo say that Grape Boy is opposite of gentleman!" The other two 1-B girls all giggled in agreement with Pony, who joined them in giggling along as well. It was at that point that the boys came back from getting snacks at the convenience store. Seeing that the girls were giggling, the boys asked what was so funny, only for Reiko to tell them what Pony said about what Bakugo said about Mineta.

The ashy-haired boy himself let out an amused chuckle. "Heh, yeah I don't trust that little gremlin in the least. Hell, I bet that there are many who can't trust the perverted purple prick as far as any of them can throw him. Kaminari even told me that he's planning to try to distance himself from Grape Head little by little over the coming times." Bakugo crossed his arms over his chest, shook his head in a disappointed manner. "Sorry, but Grape Head is the worst."

Reiko held up a hand to cut off any further argument from Bakugo. "No, no, the girls and I all agree with you," the ghost girl said, "And not just us three girls here at the park, but every girl in class 1-B cannot stand your classmate Mineta." The ghost girl turned to look at Todoroki. "You and the boys will keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't act lewd towards us, won't you?"

"If he does, I'll grab him by his holy land, flash freeze it as if it were dipped in liquid nitrogen, then crush it with my bare hands," Todoroki offered.

"I'll take my socks and shoes off so I can not only kick him in the balls while barefoot, but use my quirk through the foot that I use to kick Grape Head in the balls," Bakugo said, "That way, I will both kick him in the balls and explode them at the exact same time."

Kirishima, with a curiously surprised look on his face, turned to look at the other boys. "Wow, I just realized that Mineta's manhood has been attacked quite a lot. At least ever since we had that tournament a while ago against Vulcan."

"So you _won_'_t_ defend your girlfriend's honor if Mineta ever acts like a pervert towards her?" Todoroki asked as he raised an eyebrow at the hardening quirk boy.

Kirishima pounded his right fist into his left hand while using his quirk to harden both his hands and his forearms. "Oh, I'll still hit the dude if he creeps on Kinoko, however I'd probably favor punching him right in the face. While I have Red Riot Unbreakable active." Kirishima's response seemed to be satisfactory to Bakugo and Todoroki. The girls, for their part, were all amused by how their boyfriends had just described how each of them would punish their class's infamous pervert if said pervert ever acted lewd towards the 1-B girls.

(Wherever he was in the city, Mineta felt a shiver go up his spine.)

* * *

The following morning over in the common area in the 1-B dorms, the girls of 1-B were hanging at the island counter in their kitchen, having breakfast as they talked. There were no classes that day, so the girls were free to hang. "Oh Reiko, Pony, Kinoko," Itsuka began, getting the three girls she asked for to turn to look at her, "How was the triple date yesterday?"

"Oh hells yeah," Setsuna remarked as she and the other girls all leaned closer to hear what their classmates how went on the triple date had to say, "We all want the details."

"It was quite lovely," Reiko remarked, "There was one incident during lunch, but Todoroki was quick to resolve it and get me out of there." A look of guilt, mixed with a dash of worry, crossed the ghost girl's face. "…I was also reminded how a guy that I fully acknowledge is way above me socially speaking wanted to be with me anyway. I'm worried that someone may attempt to get him to leave me."

Itsuka snorted back a laugh at Reiko's worry, making her turn to face her. "Reiko, there's no need to worry about that," the class rep of 1-B replied, "From what I heard, Todoroki made a bigger goof out of himself in his efforts to win you over than Yosetsu made a goof out of himself in his efforts to get Yaoyorozu to notice him. Hell, he made his dad shell out extra for all of the upgrades your bedroom at your family's house got when the neighborhood was rebuilt." The other girls all nodded in agreement with Itsuka.

Reiko, who was blushing out of mild embarrassment, apologized for worrying so much, but Setsuna slapped her on the back and told her not to sweat the details. Reiko nodded in agreement with her, even remembering how Todoroki stood up for her at the restaurant, how he made it clear to Ryoga Yaoyorozu that he (Todoroki) was with Reiko and was happy that way. Reiko still couldn't believe how much the son of Endeavor cared for her.

Setsuna, with a sly look, turned her attention over to Kinoko. "But we've yet to hear from the girl of the hour herself, given that she finally got her dream guy to go out with her and the two of them went out on a date." Kinoko was blushing when the other girls all turned to look at her. "Come on, Kinoko," Setsuna said with that same sly look of amusement, which seemed to have seeped into her tone and words, "Spill it. How was your time with Tetsutetsu's clone?"

"First off, I'd prefer it if you didn't insult Eijiro, even if you meant is as a joke," the mushroom girl began, a look of mild annoyance on her face, "Second off, I-"

"YAHOOHOOHOOHOO!" a random lame voice cheered, cutting Kinoko off and making her and the other 1-B girls all turn to see what was going on. When they did, they saw their classmate Yosetsu running and dancing around like he was at a rave party. Other 1-B boys, those being Tetsutetsu, Juzo and Artemis, followed after him for a bit before they stopped and just stood there, watching as Yosetsu danced around as if in celebration.

When Tetsutetsu, Juzo and Artemis all turned to look at the girls, they saw that all of them looked confused as all get out. Jerking a thumb at Yosetsu, Artemis said in the driest of tones, "Yeah, our buddy here was just told by that Yaoyorozu girl in 1-A that he has a crush on that she wants to go out with him." Shrugging with a confused look on his face, Artemis went on to say, "I believe that I heard something about Yaoyorozu's dad doing _something_ to piss her off, and that she agreed to be Yosetsu's girlfriend partly because she wants to spite daddy dearest."

"And thank goodness for that," Juzo said in a firm but relieved tone as he crossed his arms over his chest, "I did not want the three days I spent practicing mariachi music to go to waste."

As Tetsutetsu proceeded to ask Juzo about the mariachi music, the 1-B girls all turned to look at each other with looks of confusion. Of all the examples of interclass dating, the now official pairing of Yaoyorozu and Yosetsu seemed to have gotten off to an…interesting…start. Either way, the girls were all very happy to see a little bit more love had just bloom in the halls of U.A.

END, CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Author's notes;

Well now, I was finally able to cover a bit on one of the main ships that I wanted to do in this story, where Kirishima is hooked up with class 1-B's resident mushroom expert. Some may see that as an odd pair, but hey, I've done odd pairs in this story before; hell, this story _started_ with Izuku being hooked up to Mitsuki. Speaking of, their relationship will see a bit more work in the next chapter, as both of them are helping Bakugo with something he's doing to help Inko.

Hey, I know that this is the arc were romantic relationships get the spotlight, but not _all_ relationships in this story are romantic. In fact, one of my favorite relationships that I worked in here is the one of platonic, familial care between Bakugo and Inko. Because he views the green-haired woman as something of a grandma-figure is why Bakugo goes to the lengths that he will go to in order to help Inko in the next chapter.


	46. Chapter 46

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter forty-six: Feeling the burn

Izuku Midoriya was getting back from having a wonderful time out with his girlfriend Mitsuki. Sure, the fact that Mitsuki is not only more than double Izuku's age, as well as the fact that she's the mother of Izuku's classmate Bakugo (who is slightly older than Izuku, btw) had caused a bit of awkwardness here and there, even to this day. But some way, somehow, the two of them had been able to make the relationship work.

Mitsuki said that she was actually planning on swinging by the Midoriya apartment, as she was friends with Izuku's mother Inko. At that point, Izuku would take his leave as he would return to the grounds of U.A. High School, the top hero academy in Japan and the school that Izuku, as well as the aforementioned Bakugo, goes to. Speaking of the ashy-haired boy, he bumped into Izuku and his mother as they were making their way to see Inko.

Bakugo, when he was grilled by Mitsuki on what he was up to, held up a few grocery bags. "Yeah, Mrs. Midoriya asked me to handle some shopping for her, as she said that she wasn't feeling all that well to go herself," the explosive teen explained.

"Inko's under the weather?" Mitsuki said, a hint of worry in her tone, "Well hot damn, we need to pick up the pace and go see what's up with her!" Mitsuki then immediately took off running, forcing both her son and her boyfriend to have to dash in order to catch up with her. By the time that Izuku and Bakugo had arrived at the apartment building where the Midoriya apartment was located, they could already see Mitsuki go up the stairs in leaps and bounds, as if she were a pro hero arriving on the scene of a crime.

Izuku was impressed, as well as a bit touched, by the fire within Mitsuki that spurred her on to see to his mother's well-being. Bakugo, for his part, was annoyed with how erratic his hag of a mother was acting. The two teen boys then began to go up the stairs to the floor where Izuku and his mother's apartment was located, just in time to see Mitsuki rush into the apartment as she was shouting, "Ima coming, Inko!"

The boys had to run a bit more, but they stopped short right when they appeared in the open doorway that led into the Midoriya apartment. The reason that both of them stopped was due to hearing Mitsuki cry out in a surprised and mildly fearful tone, "Holy shit! Inko, what the hell happened to you?!" The two boys, Izuku in particular, rushed in, and what both of them saw had set a great degree of fear for the green-haired woman into their respective hearts; Inko, with a pained and exhausted look on her face, was breathing hard, while clearly knocked out of it, as Mitsuki struggled to pick her up and lay her out on the sofa.

"What the hell's wrong with Mrs. Midoriya?!" Bakugo exclaimed, clearly alarmed by what he was seeing happening to the person who was the closest thing that the explosive teen has ever had as a grandparent, as he and Izuku rushed over.

"Boys, call the hospital!" Mitsuki ordered, "We're going to need to rush Inko here right over so she can receive proper treatment! This is out of our hands at this point!" Both boys nodded in the affirmative as they went about contacting the help that Inko needed.

They prayed like they were Ibara in class 1-B that they wouldn't be too late.

* * *

Sometime later the following morning, Izuku and Bakugo were both sitting in a hospital room, looking at a now awake and stable Inko as she rested in the one hospital bed that was in the room. The green-haired woman had a sympathetic look that showed she not only understood that she had caused worry to both boys, but that she was also a bit embarrassed to have been such a bother to them, among other people. "Heh, I guess I should have been keeping better track of my insulin shots, huh?" Inko asked.

"Mom, how could you forget to keep track of that?" Izuku asked, tears streaming down the sides of his face, "This isn't the first time your diabetes has landed you here in similar circumstances."

Inko, looking an even mix of understanding and guilty, nodded once in response. "…I guess that so much has happened that I sort of lost track of all of that. Sorry about all of this, sweetie."

Izuku looked like he was about to ask something else, but he was cut off when Bakugo raised a hand, getting both green-haired persons in the room to look at him. Seeing as he now had the focus of everyone else in the room on him, Bakugo straightened up a bit in his chair. "How long has this been a thing, Mrs. Midoriya?" the explosive teen asked, "This whole…" Bakugo stopped short, gestured to the green-haired woman with both hands. "…Whole diabetes thing that landed you here in the hospital late yesterday evening."

Inko gave a resigned, mildly troubled sigh. "…For a while now, Katsuki," Inko replied, her voice sounding guilty with a hint of sounding resigned in it. The green-haired woman looked guilty as she stared at her notable belly for a bit. She closed her eyes, gently shook her head. When she was ready to continue, she turned to look at the boys again. "…It happened sometime around the point that my weight got to a little over the two-hundred pound mark."

"That…does make sense," Izuku remarked, a look of consideration on his face, "After all, there have been many cases where people develop diabetes due to gaining weight. And here I thought that diabetes was something genetic that runs in the family."

Inko briskly shook her head, or at least shook her head as briskly as she could, all things considered. "Oh no, sweetie, there's no genetic disposition towards any sort of health problem in our family. Otherwise I would be fearful every day that you might end up developing diabetes, same as I have. Luckily, you have a clean bill of health, outside of physical injuries that you have sustained due to your path of becoming a pro hero."

"Yeah, Deku breaking a bone is far and away a different thing than you having diabetes," Bakugo remarked as he nodded a few times, his arms crossed over his chest. He then lowered his arms, pounded a fist into his hand, before he continued. "Case in point is that trying to work out how to resolve both issues as best as possible varies wildly from one another. When Deku breaks a bone, he needs to either put a cast on it or let Recovery Girl work her magic." Bakugo then gave Inko a troubled, concerned look. "As for you Mrs. Midoriya, I'm not entirely sure if there's anything that can be done to get rid of what's making you sick."

Once more, Inko looked guilty, understanding that her lapse in keeping her diabetes in mind has caused those who care about her to feel worry and fear for her well-being. Inko was brought back to reality when she heard someone smack the back of their hand into the open palm of their other hand. Looking over, she saw that Bakugo was the one who had done so. "All that I can think of is helping you to lose as much excess weight as possible," the explosive teen went on, "If you having that excess weight is what led to you getting diabetes, then I think that losing as much of it as possible may help you in at least helping you keeping as much of a lid on it as possible."

Izuku nodded in agreement with Bakugo. "Yeah, that may be a good idea, Kacchan." Turning to look at Inko, Izuku said, "And Kacchan's point does bring up what I've been saying for quite some time. Mom, it would really help your health out a lot if you were to lose some weight. It'd make things a lot easier for you in the long run if you took steps to improve your health."

This time, Inko had a hint of a mildly annoyed look in her eyes. Sighing in a mildly exasperated tone, Inko remarked, "I know that a lot of people have been telling me that I ought to-"

"Mom, it landed you in the hospital again!" Inko looked a bit surprised as she turned to regard Izuku, who had cut her off mid-sentence. The green-haired woman stopped short when she saw the look of pleading worry on her son's face. Inko was about to give what would be a usual spiel for her, but seeing that look on her only child's face, plus acknowledging where she was at the moment and why she was at that place, made her back down.

Inko gave a troubled, mildly resigned sigh, a sign that she knew that she had a hand that was best to simply fold on. "…I assume that you've tried to take steps to improve your health before," Bakugo said, making Inko turn to face him, "Only for all measures to ultimately fail, resulting in you falling right back to square one." Standing up, Bakugo said as he pointed to Inko, "That will be where I come in. I'll see to it that you not only work to lose your excess weight and improve your health, but that it stays that way."

The green-haired woman looked a bit surprised, before she cracked a bit of a gentle smile. "It's really nice of you to offer to do that, Katsuki."

"I haven't just offered it, I've already started doing it."

"What."

Nodding a few times in the affirmative, Bakugo explained, "Deku already clued me in on how your diabetes is connected to you having some excess weight right after the paramedics rushed you out of your apartment as me, Deku and my mom watched. Knowing that, I _immediately_ took measures to improve your health as much as possible."

Izuku, with a mildly embarrassed look on his face, said with a bit of hesitance in his tone, "Umm, Kacchan isn't kidding, mom. The first thing he did was call up all his friends over at U.A. and got them to pitch in on the plan. One of the things that Kacchan had his friends do was have Mina search the apartment for every last 'unhealthy' snack, including searching for any and all of your 'hiding spots' that I informed her about."

"Pinky is currently burning all of them in a metal drum as we speak," Bakugo stated, drawing a nod in the affirmative from Izuku. Pointing to Inko, Bakugo said, "Additionally, my squad and I will be working with you to make sure you stick with a diet and exercise regimen. Furthermore, it won't just be me, the boys and Pinky who will be watching like a hawk to make sure you stick to the plan we're working on to make sure you regain as much of your health as you can."

Once again, Izuku nodded in confirmation. "Kacchan, Kaminari and Kirishima were also able to get Pony, Kyoka and Kinoko to agree to help out. There's this really great women's only work out facility in town, and the girls plan to take you there regularly as part of helping you to lose the excess weight as part of the plan we threw together for you."

"My mom will also be pitching in, too," Bakugo went on, "Covering for us when our work over at U.A. takes us away." It was at that moment that both Bakugo and Izuku saw the look on Inko's face, one where her eyes were growing wider and wider out of a mix of surprise and a bit of shock. "…When I go about helping someone with something, Mrs. Midoriya," Bakugo said, "I don't do things half-assed. I hit everything hard and fast, giving it no time to regroup."

"I…see…" Inko replied, still a bit unsure of what all laid ahead of her. She was not going to begrudge the boys, though; she knew full well that they were acting purely out of concern for her health and well-being. And the green-haired woman did have to admit to herself that keeping her well-fed body around did have some detriment to her health, as well as some aspects of her daily life. The boys said that as soon as Inko was cleared, they would get to work on helping her get her health back.

Inko was wondering just what all laid ahead of her.

* * *

The morning after she had been cleared by the hospital and was able to return home, Inko was escorted to her apartment by Izuku and Bakugo. Inko was hoping for a bit of down time before what she was expecting to be the time where her son and Katsuki would begin to work her to the bone. Instead, the first thing that Inko saw when she and the boys walked into the living room in the apartment were some of the boys' classmates/schoolmates over at U.A.

In all, there four girls and three boys; Inko recognized the pink-skinned girl and all three of the boys as Bakugo's friends Mina, Sero, Kirishima and Kaminari. Inko also recognized the girl with headphone jack cords growing out of her earlobes as Izuku and Bakugo's classmate Kyoka, and the blonde girl with hooves for feet and a pair of lyre-shaped horns growing out of her head as Bakugo's girlfriend Pony. The girl with brown hair in a bob-cut, a similar hairstyle as Uraraka's save for the fact that this mystery girl had bangs covering her eyes, remained unknown to Inko, although she had to guess it might have been that Kinoko girl that Bakugo said was dating his friend Kirishima.

Getting up from the one armchair in the living room, Mina pointed in a declaring manner right at the green-haired woman. "The crew and I are here to help you get your health back on track! And before you ask, no, there is no getting out of this."

"I…see…" Inko remarked, a bit taken aback, seeing that the teens were not even going to let her rest for one day.

"Here's the deal, Mrs. M," Bakguo began, "Pony, Pinky, Earplugs and Shrooms will go with you to that women's only workout gym and work with you there for a few hours. In the meanwhile, I'm taking Deku and the boys to go pick up some necessary food to work out the diet that you will be put on. Luckily for us, Kirishima knows a bit about healthy eating since he's constantly working out to improve his strength as much as possible."

The crimson-haired boy flexed his arms, an amused look on his face. "Focusing on building my strength and keeping myself healthy is part of what I do to make myself as effective as possible at one day becoming a pro hero."

"Umm, about going to the gym," Inko said, sounding a bit hesitant, "I, umm, don't necessarily an outfit for working out in my si-"

"Mitsuki already got one for you, mom," Izuku interrupted, "It's waiting for you on your bed."

Pointing in the direction that Inko's bedroom was located in, Bakugo said to the green-haired woman, "Go grab the workout outfit that my mom got for you, plus a swimsuit in case the girls decide to have you do a few laps in the pool at the gym, throw all that into a duffle bag, and go with the girls to the gym. In the meanwhile, the boys and I will go look for the necessary stuff on the grocery list to begin your diet."

To say that Inko was surprised with how serious the teens were being, how much they were playing hardball with helping her get her health back on track, would be understating things a bit. Still, Inko acknowledged that they were only going so far because they were trying to keep an eye out for her health and well-being. As such, Inko nodded in agreement, and went back to her bedroom to get the workout outfit that Mitsuki had gotten for her.

Inko not only saw the outfit that Mitsuki had prepared, but also saw that there was included a pair of shoes to wear while working out, and Mitsuki had also pulled Inko's swimsuit out and laid it on the bed as well. Everything that Inko would need for working out at the gym was right there on her bed; there was even a duffle bag, currently empty, sitting on her bed for her to put all of her workout stuff in.

There was also a small envelope on the bed, laying on top of the pair of workout shoes. The green-haired woman picked the envelope out, opened it and removed the letter within. The note was clearly written by Mitsuki, and it gave Inko an idea on how much Mitsuki had done so far to help with the effort of getting her to get as much of her health back;

_Yo Inko,_

_Katsuki, as well as that sweetness you call your son, and all of their friends over at school, are going to whip that fat ass of yours into shape. I hope you're ready to feel the burn, because not only will they make you feel that burn, but as they're all students at Japan's top hero academy, they are bound to be tougher on you than whatever jackass sleaze you can encounter at the average workout gym._

_Yours, Mitsuki_

_P.S.: When the boys and their friends won't be around to keep an eye on you, I _will_ be. You are not going to get out of this, mark my words._

Inko paled a bit at the thought of being put through a workout from hell, and from her own loved ones and their friends. Still, since it was loved ones and their friends who were going to be doing the job, the green-haired woman felt relieved. They know her, and they all clearly know what the heck they're doing. Inko was confident that not only are the boys, their friends and Mitsuki going to have her best interests in mind, but that they'll also actually get results.

* * *

Inko's time at the gym was going well so far. Granted, she did feel a bit self-conscious going into the gym, as she did have a notably well-fed form. Luckily for Inko, she went in accompanied by Mina, Kyoka, Pony and Kinoko. "We will get in very good exercise," Pony said, "You will lose weight no time flat!"

"Yeah, this place is pretty good as far as women's only gyms in Japan go," Kyoka remarked, "You don't have to worry about jerk guys giving you judgmental looks here." Nodding in compliance with the teen girls, Inko followed them over to some light exercise machines to begin the first part of her working out. After Inko got in a sufficient amount of time according to what Mina said on the matter, the girls had her stop and take a break.

After the machines, the girls then had Inko head on over to the large indoor pool that was at the gym, so she could get some swimming in. When Inko and the girls all finished changing, they all came out of the locker room and entered the pool area. As they all stood by the pool, Mina took notice of the fact that Kinoko was wearing what looked like a school swimsuit. The pink-skinned girl gave class 1-B's resident mushroom expert a sly, self-amused look. "I guess the swimsuit that you got at your old middle school is still a good fit, Kinoko?"

Looking embarrassed, Kinoko remarked, "Well, I, umm, I haven't really been able to find the time to go out and buy a new one, and this one I got from my middle school still fits me, so I saw no reason to discard it."

Giving Kinoko a gentle slap on the back, Mina remarked as she laughed, "Relax, girl. I'll go out with you after we're done helping Mrs. M for the day and help you find a new swimsuit." A hint of slyness entered the pink-skinned girl's expression as she added, "I can help pick out one that will get as much of Kirishima's attention as possible." Seeing Kinoko's face go very red at that moment made Mina burst out laughing a bit, drawing complaints from Kyoka and Pony for her to ease up on Kinoko a little bit.

Inko, for her part, was glad to see that the girls who were going to help her get her health back on track were as friendly as they were, seeing Mina's actions as her simply teasing a friend a bit in a well-meaning manner.

* * *

"Starting today, we will rule your diet as if it were a defenseless Baltic nation," Bakugo said as he, Izuku, Sero, Kirishima and Kaminari all stood around Inko as she sat at the dining table in her apartment. There was a selection of various healthy foodstuffs on the table; Inko could tell that all of this was what the boys had in mind when they were writing up the list of what all she would be allowed to eat as she was on her diet and exercise regimen.

At that moment, the doorbell rang, so Izuku went over to answer it. Opening the door, he was greeted by the sight of his classmate Sato, holding a (fairly large) iced cupcake that he had not only made but individually wrapped in plastic wrapping. "I heard that your mother just got out of the hospital, Izuku," Sato said, "So I made this for her as a gift to show that I'm happy to hear that she made a full rec-"

Sato was cut off when Kaminari, who had seen what was going on, came running over, snatched the iced cupcake out of Sato's hands, and chucked it with all of his might as he yelled, "YEET!" The baked good was sent flying well over the house on the other side of the street from where the apartment building was located. The cupcake ended up exploding all over Mineta's face, as he was walking by in that area at the time.

Seeing the look of shock and surprise on Sato's face, Izuku proceeded to explain things to him, saying that while he knew that Sato meant well with the gesture, its timing wasn't all that good as his mom was on a diet to lose weight; by Bakugo's orders, not even cheat days would be allowed. Sato then proceeded to apologize for his bad timing, and further went on to say that he had a healthy eating cookbook that he can make recipes from if it would help.

Izuku, with an appreciative smile on his face, nodded in agreement, glad that his other classmates were starting to understand just what all was going on.

* * *

A week after Izuku, Bakugo and their classmates/schoolmates started her on the diet and exercise regimen from hell, Inko woke up one morning and went to her bathroom. Right away, her eyes were drawn to her most dreaded of enemies, the bathroom scale. The green-haired woman gave a nervous gulp as she contemplated seeing if the efforts her son and the others has had any amount of progress thus far.

Ignoring the nervous feeling that was welling up in the pit of her stomach, Inko went on ahead and walked over to the scale. She took off her sleep outfit, putting her in only her undergarments, before she walked up to the scale. Exhaling as much as possible, Inko then stepped onto the scale, looked down and watched nervously as the digital number started to flash quickly as the scale began to measure her current weight.

Inko hoped that there would be at least _some_ amount of progress. Ever since the teens and Mitsuki had been watching her like a hawk, Inko had eaten only foods on the list that had been approved, and she did all of her exercises when told, making sure all of her goals for the week had been reached. Even so, Inko could not help but dread that she might not have made any progress thus far, or worse yet actually gain a few-

*BLEEP*

Inko's mind stopped as she heard her scale make a noise that indicated it was done weighing her. As she slowly looked down at the scale, Inko was dreading what number that she would end up seeing. Eventually, Inko slowly opened her eyes, dreading the worst case scenario.

Inko had lost five pounds since she started the program everyone had put her on.

Huh. Not a bad start.

END, CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Author's notes;

I had read at least one other story that showed Inko having diabetes. I wanted to take the concept of Inko's slight extra weight having some manner of not-so-nice impact on her health and work it into a chapter here to help show that Inko's loved one have only her best interests in mind. I am by no means bashing the aesthetic of Inko's appearance; chubby Inko looks just as fine as slim Inko in my opinion. However, there is the fact that a person who has a notable degree of excess weight can see notable improvements in their life if they take steps to lose the weight.

My goal with this chapter was to show that the people in Inko's life care about her, and will help her do what it takes to get her health back on track as much as can be done. Sure, the main focus of this chapter isn't a romantic relationship, even though this arc is focusing on those, but I still felt it was necessary to show that everyone here cares for one another. Also, I was able to work in a bit of focus on some of the romantic pairings that I've been working on in this story, so I hope it all evens out in the end. But that's not here or there. Anyway, the next chapter will see a new pair get its moment in the spotlight.

The pairing in question will happen whether Aizawa wants it to or not.


	47. Chapter 47

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter forty-seven: Of marriage pacts and adoptions

Aizawa, as he had been brought along by Hizashi and Sekijiro, was chilling with them at the local bar after a long day of teaching classes over at U.A. High School, the top hero academy in Japan. The three men were taking time to unwind and enjoy some drinks, although Aizawa just wanted to simply go home and crawl into bed, as he had quite a lot on his plate to deal with at the moment in regards to the two youths that he had recently taken in as foster children, although both youths have different reasons for falling under the underground hero's guardianship.

There was the first foster child that Aizawa took in, the little horned girl Eri. Her story is quite the twisted, complicated affair, as she was connected to a now-defunct off-shot of the Yakuza, which was under the control of the now-imprisoned Overhaul. Ultimately, Eri was entrusted to Aizawa, as he was best equipped to handle Eri should her potent quirk go out of control as he can simply whip his quirk out and erase the power.

Then there was Aizawa's other foster child, his protégé Hitoshi Shinso. The brainwasher had lived quite a horrible life at home due to a physically abusive father, who took things out on Shinso, blaming him for the fact that his mom died during childbirth. After one incident that had gone too far, Shinso's biological father was arrested and stripped of parental rights by the law, thus effectively leaving Shinso orphaned. Aizawa took Shinso in less than twelve hours after all of that business had gone down.

Truth be told, Aizawa never saw himself as ever having a family; he simply didn't see it as being something that would happen to/for him. But the time that he has had ever since he became the person legally responsible for Eri and Shinso has been…oddly satisfying to him. He has actually enjoyed being a father, though his story is far and away from the traditional standard. It was due to how he has enjoyed being there for Eri and Shinso that Aizawa felt as terrible about what was due to happen within short enough order.

"Don't sweat it, Sho," Hizashi said in a reassuring tone as he patted the underground hero on the back; Aizawa sat at the bar counter, on the stool between the one that Hizashi was on and the one that Sekijiro was on. "The two of us will help you figure this out."

Aizawa turned to look at his co-worker and friend, his fellow pro hero. "Can you and Vlad really help?" Aizawa asked, a hint in his expression suggesting that he was close to actually breaking down in tears. "There's a highly likely chance that Eri and Shinso may end up being removed from my custody." Aizawa turned back around to face forward, allowing his head to fall down onto his left arm as it rested across the bar space in front of him. "I might end up losing my kids here, damn it."

"Well what all do the folks over at Youth Services think is wrong?" Sekijiro asked, a curious hint in his tone, "I mean, you are a pro hero, and you also work as a teacher at a hero academy. You've also proven that you're a stable-enough person, and you have been able to provide a good home for the foster kids you took in. It also helps that you can afford to support two foster kids." The homeroom teacher of U.A.'s class 1-B took a swig from his mug of beer before going on. "I personally fail to see why Youth Services sees all of that as not enough."

Aizawa was about to speak up, but before he could get a word out the door to the bar was thrown open, and in walked a number of women, supporting one of their own as she was not only crying her eyes out, but it was clear by the sounds of said crying that the woman has already gotten drunk before she had even showed up at the bar. Aizawa, Hizashi and Sekijiro all turned to look and see what was going on, and what they saw specifically surprised the lot of them.

The women of the group consisted of Mitsuki, Pixie-Bob and Nemuri, supporting a drunk and clearly upset Emi. The men were all rather surprised to see Emi, who is known commonly as the Smile Hero Ms. Joke, in such a mood that was so unfitting for the kind of air she liked to put on around other people. Additionally, the men saw U.A. student Izuku Midoriya walk in after the women, asking Mitsuki if she and the others would be needing any help.

As the women got Emi settled down in a booth in the bar, Aizawa got Izuku's attention and had him come over to talk to him, Hizashi and Sekijiro. "Midoriya, I don't suppose you'd care to tell us what's up with Ms. Joke, do you?" Aizawa asked.

Izuku gave an indifferent shrug. "I honestly don't know why she's so upset, Aizawa-sensei. All that I am aware of is what Mitsuki told me about her friend being upset due to getting close to being thirty. Mitsuki didn't even give me any details on the matter."

"Ah, I think I see what's going on," Hizashi remarked, a sly hint of knowing amusement in his tone, "Emi is a wreck due to getting close to being thirty, yet she's not only still unmarried but she has yet to have any children. Tis a curse that many women all over have come to fear might end up becoming their lot in life." The cockatiel-haired hero gently shook his head as he gave a 'tisk-tisk-tisk' sound. "Emi fears that she is getting close to being past her prime."

"Feh," Sekijiro remarked, "Knowing her, Emi may end up doing something desperate and morally questionable, like getting ultra-plastered and hooking her nails into a boyfriend around half her age, if not a little less than half her age." Placing his right hand on his hip, Sekijiro said as he gestured with his other hand, "Women who prey on boys that young are the-"

Aizawa cut his co-worker off by jabbing him in his side before pointing Izuku out to him. With a look of realization on his face, Sekijiro quickly changed his tune. "So, umm, have the other women said anything about what to do to cheer Emi up?" Sekijiro asked as he and the other men all regarded Izuku.

The green-eyed boy gently shook his head, a mildly resigned look on his face. "They haven't said anything, I'm afraid. All that Mitsuki and the other women seem intent on doing at the moment is trying to cheer Ms. Joke up. They'll probably focus on solving whatever issues she has after she's more coherent."

"Hoo boy," Hizashi said, letting out an appropriate-sounding whistle, "Hopefully Emi won't remember right now how she and Aizawa here have a marriage pact. She'll need to be more sound of mind in order to handle that business."

"What?" Sekijiro, Izuku and Aizawa all said in unison as they all turned to regard Hizashi. All of the guys were looking at him with wide-eyed looks of shocked surprise, Aizawa especially so.

Nodding in the affirmative, Hizashi said, "Oh, hells yeah. Around the time us adults had all graduated and started off on our respective pro hero careers, Aizawa and Emi made a marriage pact with one another, saying that if the both of them were still unmarried by the time both of them were thirty, then they would get married to one another." Clapping his hands together, he went on saying, "Emi's close to thirty herself, so it won't be long until I suspect that she will come to collect on the promise that she and Aizawa made with one another."

"You cannot be serious, Hizashi," Aizawa said, "Yeah, sure, Emi and I really did do that. But being reminded of that now, when Emi's too drunk and upset to function properly and I'm having to deal with the hot mess on my plat, is not the best thing in the world!" The underground hero crossed his arms over his chest, giving Hizashi a firm look. "This is something that will have to be tackled at a much later time, after Emi and me both clean up what we respectively have to deal with."

Aizawa was going to say something else, but he was cut off when Sekijiro placed a hand on his shoulder, making him turn around and face him. Likewise, Hizashi and Izuku both turned to look at the 1-B homeroom teacher as Aizawa turned to face him. "…Actually, Aizawa, I'm seeing a potential solution to both your problem _and_ Emi's problem," Sekijiro remarked.

"Oh?" Aizawa arched a wry eyebrow at his fellow pro hero and U.A. teacher. "And what is it that you've come up with?"

"First off, let me ask a question to confirm why you're worried about your problem," Sekijiro began, "Is the reason that Youth Services plans to remove your foster kids from your custody due to the fact that you're raising them _alone_? Did Youth Services say that they would rather that Eri and Shinso be raised by a couple rather than a single parent?"

"Wait a minute here, what's going on now with Eri and Shinso?" Izuku asked, a hint of alarm entering his expression.

Aizawa gestured for the green-eyed boy to hold that thought. After a few moments, Aizawa let out a resigned sigh as he said, "…Yes. They think that a single person cannot properly raise a foster child, much less two at once." Crossing his arms over his chest, Aizawa went on, "But I fail to see how that involves solving Emi's problem along with my own in one fell swoop."

Sekijiro wore an amused smirk as he laid a hand on Aizawa's shoulder. "…Here's what I'm thinking. You and Emi collect on the little marriage pact that the two of you have between one another a little early. After you're both together, you should have enough of a stand to retain custody of Eri and Shinso. Hell, you and Emi may even be able to straight up adopt the two of those kids, giving them a new permanent home."

"…You're saying that I should marry Emi now…" Aizawa said, "…So that the two of us can keep Eri and Shinso straight up." Sekijiro, an assured smile on his face, nodded affirmatively. Hizashi also nodded along with the plan, seeing that it has a lot of value. Even Izuku seemed to like the sound of Sekijiro's plan, as it would save Eri and Shinso from future trouble.

Aizawa let out a troubled sigh as he closed his eyes, holding a hand over his face as he gave the notion some serious thought. Honestly, Aizawa forgot that he even had the marriage pact between him and Emi going (as well as forget _why_ he had it going), although knowing Emi she would have been more than glad to remind him of it when she officially reached the big three-o. But then again, Sekijiro did have a point on how Aizawa and Emi collecting on it a bit early would not only solve Aizawa's problem in trying to retain custody of Eri and Shinso, but it'd also help to bring Emi out of her depression.

However, there was one main issue that Aizawa had with this plan. "…It seems that this plan is structured mainly for me to take advantage of Emi so that I would not lose Eri and Shinso. I don't want her thinking that I'm using her, which the plan seems to be revolving around. I'm not one to act like someone who likes to use others. That's just not me."

"Then we'll approach this differently," Hizashi replied, "Instead of you bringing up the marriage pact in regards to the two of you getting together so you'd have enough of a stable base to keep custody of Eri and Shinso, you'll simply tell Emi that you want to hook up with her so that the two of you can adopt the kids. Just give Emi enough time to recover before you tell her about how you want to hook up with her so that the two of you can become new parents."

Aizawa saw how Hizashi and Sekijiro were looking at him, as if they both expected him to go on and carry out the plan. Even Izuku looked like he was hoping that the right choice in regards to Eri and Shinso would be made. Letting out a resigned sigh as he saw that there wasn't a whole lot of other options available, Aizawa agreed to give things a shot, hoping that Emi wouldn't be all that upset or whatever with the plan.

* * *

Aizawa discovered, to his mildly piqued interest and mild surprise, the following morning that Emi was more than willing to agree to the plan.

The Smile Hero was very much on board with the plan, as it not only solved her issues with being single, but it would also make her a mother. And all without losing the slim build that she had come to favor as of late. Aizawa was surprised with how quickly Emi took to the idea, although he was happy that Eri and Shinso would be saved from being tossed about in the dark realm that was Youth Services. And besides, Aizawa had to admit to himself that, speaking from a rational standpoint, things between him and Emi could actually work out rather well. Having someone always willing to back him up beats being on his own constantly.

The only issue is that Aizawa can't honestly see Emi being an underground hero, same as him. But that's an Emi problem, not an Aizawa one.

There was also the fact that Emi had to get used to the two minors that, when the plan is fully carried out, will become her adopted children. The Smile Hero right away took a liking to little Eri, and she was amused by the fact that she would have a son who is already in high school. "Welp, it looks like that chances are I'll be rather young for a grandma," Emi remarked as she gave Shinso's shoulder a playful slap, eliciting an embarrassed expression out of Shinso. Giving the brainwasher a playful nudge with her elbow, Emi said with a sly expression, "Name your first daughter after me, won't you?"

Shinso, with a bit of a wide-eyed look of shock on his face, replied, "…Umm, I'm still a first year in high school."

"Well I mean when you're a stable adult contributing to society, obviously," Emi remarked, letting out a bit of a laugh as she looked at the embarrassed look on Shinso's face. Eri, for her part, was all smiles and giggles the moment Aizawa introduced to her and Shinso their 'tentative mommy who may become their for-real mommy' (Aizawa used the word 'mother' instead of 'mommy', but Eri made the word change in her little girl mind).

Speaking of Eri, Emi let out a happy squeal when she first laid eyes on Eri, picking her up by hooking her hands under the little horned girl's armpits then holding her close to her chest, supporting Eri's seat with her right arm. "And aren't you the most adorable little princess that I've ever seen," Emi said.

"Ooh, ooh, big brother has a really pretty girlfriend," Eri said.

"Oh does he now," the Smile Hero replied, sounding amused as she shot Shinso a quick, knowing look before quickly turning her eyes back to the little horned girl.

Nodding a few times, Eri said, "Yeah huh! Big brother's girlfriend has kitty ears, and a kitty tail, and she's really squishy!"

"Huh?" Emi replied, a bit taken aback by Eri's description. Sighing in a resigned tone, Shinso took his smartphone out, opened a picture album, scrolled through it, and found a photo he was looking for. Turning his phone around, Shinso showed Mrs. Joke a full body picture of Sakaki. After taking a quick look at it, Emi said, "Ah, so it's a girl with a cat-themed quirk that gives her cat-like ears and a cat tail."

"I first met Sakaki back when she and this one boy in class 1-B were students at Vulcan," Shinso replied as he put his phone away.

Mrs. Joke nodded a few times in understanding. "Yeah, I got it from Aizawa that you like cats, so it doesn't surprise me that you found a cat girl." A hint of amusement entered the Smile Hero's expression as she regarded Shinso. "…Although I never would have guessed it that you like your girls with generous amounts of cushion for the-"

"Please don't say phrases like that around Eri," Aizawa's voice called out, cutting Emi off and making her and everyone else turn to see Aizawa come walking over. Gesturing to Eri, Aizawa said to Emi, "It's bad enough that she had been calling herself a horny girl without knowing how people tend to interpret that phrase."

Poking the little horn that was growing out of her head, Eri said with a hint of mild confusion in her tone, "But I have a horn growing out of my head papa, and I'm a girl. Doesn't that make me a horny-"

"The proper phrase to use in that instance is _horned_ girl, sweetie," Aizawa said, cutting Eri off before he gave her a gentle ruffle on the top of her head. The little horned girl decided to do as her papa says, giggling cutely a bit as the underground hero gently ruffled the top of her head. Turning to look at Emi, Aizawa said, "Anyway Emi, given our plans, I figure that you would like it if we did things in a formal, traditional sense."

Emi had a blank, mildly confused look on her face as she regarded the underground hero. "What do you mean by that, Shouta?"

Letting out a resigned sigh, Aizawa proceeded to explain, "I mean to say that before we actually get married, you'd want me to take you out to a nice dinner and pop the question to you there."

"I know this awesome steakhouse that's the fanciest place in town, outside of that Italian restaurant that only rich folks like the family of that Yaoyorozu girl in your homeroom class can afford," Emi replied right away, "They have this awesome salad that like a regular salad but it has small bits of fruit in it without it becoming a full blown fruit salad, also they have the finest-"

"Just give me the address and I'll look into taking the both of us there this Friday," Aizawa replied, "I'm also going to have to find a sitter for Eri in that time, as I would like the dinner to just be between you and me." Emi, nodding in understanding, agreed to let Aizawa handle all of the details for the night that will make her the happiest woman in Japan, if not all of the world.

* * *

That Friday evening, as Aizawa and Emi walked into the steakhouse that the latter suggested, Aizawa was glad that so few people knew about him and Emi planning to get married. Outside of the soon-to-be couple themselves, there was only Hizashi, Sekijiro, Izuku, Shinso and Eri, and none of them told anybody else. The underground hero was glad the only others who knew about things could be counted with just the digits on one hand.

The steakhouse wasn't the kind of restaurant where you could reserve a table ahead of time (it wasn't that fancy), but it still was pretty top tier for those who weren't really rich. And even with the lack of reservation, Aizawa and Emi were still seated at a table in next to flat. As the two pro heroes sat at their table, eating their respective appetizers, Aizawa decided to pass the time until he felt would be appropriate to pull the ring out and pop the question formally (around dessert). "So yeah, Emi," Aizawa said, "Considering the damage that Ketsubutsu suffered back during the monster siege, Loukar decided to enroll Eunice at U.A. I told Nezu about what all Eunice would be needing, prompting him to get right on the matter of setting up a department to assist students who are special needs."

"Yeah, I did hear about that," Emi remarked, her tone taking on a hint of piqued interest, "I never met Loukar's kid, but I heard that she's an absolute marvel."

"Exactly," Aizawa remarked as he pointed at Emi in a commending manner. As the underground hero ate a boneless buffalo wing, he perked up a bit when both he and Emi heard a woman's voice call out to him. The two pro heroes looked over and saw Beru Asui walking over, looking like she was passing by after having returned from the bathroom.

"Oh, aren't you my daughter's homeroom teacher over at U.A.?" Beru asked as she stopped by, "Fancy running into you here, Mr. Aizawa."

Chewing then swallowing his mouthful of food, Aizawa replied, "Oh, you're Tsuyu's mother, right? Yeah, I was getting dinner out here."

"So you're the mother of one of Shouta's students, huh?" Emi asked, turning to face the frog-like woman, "What brings you by here?"

Beru, with a bit of an amused smile, replied, "Oh, my husband Ganma got a really nice bonus at work, so we're having a family dinner out tonight here." Letting out a bit of a chuckle, Beru went on, "Ganma works over at Yaoyorozu Offices, and he's been doing rather well ever since he got his promotion."

Nodding in understanding, Aizawa remarked, "I believe Tsuyu told me about that. She also said that her brother is somehow partly responsible for the promotion?"

"Oh yes," Beru replied, "I'm sure you heard how it was actually Samidare who saved the business from going under, saving not just his father's job but the job of every person working there." Giggling a bit once more, the frog-like woman continued, "Samidare is also partly responsible for Ganma's bonus, since he's helping the accountant sort through all of the years of accounting records that were mismanaged by accountants who were secretly villains trying to syphon funds to their cause out of an honest company."

Emi let out an amused laugh. "Well hot damn! That older brother of Aizawa's student must be hella smart if he's already helping out at his dad's place of work!"

"Umm, Samidare is actually Tsuyu's _younger_ brother, Emi," Aizawa corrected, "He's about ten, if I recall correctly." The underground hero turned to Beru, who nodded in confirmation.

"Well wowee, he must be one of those kid geniuses," the Smile Hero remarked, "I just hope that he doesn't let all of his accomplishments go to his head."

Gently shaking her head, Beru said, "Oh no, Samidare is still rather humble in his manners. You can't ask for more of a little angel. Oh!" Holding up an index finger, Beru said, "Samidare's eleventh birthday is actually coming up. It'll be a challenge managing a birthday party for him given that a lot of people will be showing up, and that might make him a bit uncomfortable as it might grate against-"

"Mom, dad sent me to find you because the waiter came back with-" Tsuyu's voice called out, stopping short when the frog girl herself walked up and saw who her mother was talking to. "Aizawa-sensei?" Tsuyu said, her tone showing that her curiosity had been piqued, "What are you doing here?" Seeing Emi out of the corner of her eye, Tsuyu then asked, "And it that really Mrs. Joke that's with you kero? What's going on?"

Aizawa let out a resigned sigh as he thought about what to say. "…Asui, you told me that your younger brother is autistic, right?" the underground hero began.

"He is, yes," Tsuyu replied, with Beru nodding in the affirmative.

"You also said he had a pair of headphones he wears to drown out noise, right?" Aizawa continued, "Did you guys bring those headphones?" Again, both Tsuyu and her mother nodded in the affirmative. "Good, he's going to need to put them on soon, because it will get a little bit loud, I suspect." Emi, knowing what Aizawa was getting at, giggled a bit as if she was a rather excited schoolgirl.

Beru and Tsuyu both returned to the table that the Asui family was using. After they were both gone, Aizawa and Emi turned back to one another, glad to have the time to themselves again. After appetizers and the main course (Emi rather ravenously devoured her meal, causing a good bit of surprise to Aizawa in the process) came the dessert, at which point Aizawa got to the point that the Smile Hero had been anticipating the entire night.

The underground hero got out of his seat, walked over to stand right next to Emi, got down on one knee, pulled out a small box and opened it so that Emi could see the ring that was inside as he asked her to marry him. Emi tearfully agreed as she leapt out of her seat, her arms held out towards Aizawa as she wrapper her arms around his shoulders. Everyone who saw what was going on the moment Aizawa got on one knee and opened that ring box began cheering loudly for the now-engaged pro hero couple.

When she and her family looked over in the direction that the main event was happening in, Tsuyu knew then why Aizawa gave her and her mother a sound warning. Beru was able to keep Samidare from freaking out by getting his special headphones out.

* * *

The following school day, Aizawa walked into his homeroom class. Even though Izuku, Shinso and Tsuyu, the only ones who knew in advance, all agreed to keep quiet about his getting engaged to Mrs. Joke, the whole of class 1-A cheered for him the moment he walked into the classroom. As a giddy Mina explained to her sensei while showing him an online pro hero news article, when two pro heroes get engaged, it tends to make the news fast.

As such, pretty much everyone in class 1-A knew about their teacher getting engaged about an hour or so after he popped the question to Emi. Not only that, but those in 1-A who were dating students in class 1-B proceeded to inform their respective dates, who helped to spread the news to the rest of Sekijiro's students. Aizawa was able to get his brats to settle down so that he could go over a few things with them.

He told them that the wedding won't be for a while, as he and Emi still have to take care of a few issues of business that comes with getting married. There's also having to come with who all to invite to the wedding, and as it will be a wedding between two pro heroes, there's no fucking way in hell the media won't pick up on it and try to stick their noses in it. It was then that the underground hero then realized that he had to teach his students a lesson that he never thought he would have to teach them; the ins and outs of pro heroes getting married.

END, CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Author's notes;

Yes, I'm actually doing this. I'm actually having Aizawa and Emi get married. Aizawa is one of my favorite pro hero characters from the series proper (along with, among others, Edgeshot, Fat Gum and Ryukyu), and I've seen some instances of him and Ms. Joke getting together in other stories. I always liked seeing that, and it's something that I've been wanting to work with here; I've also been wanting to make it more of a sweet deal for Emi, so I included that by hooking up with Aizawa, she'd also end up as mom to two kids.

Anyway, the next chapter will see Izuku and Mitsuki out enjoying their time alone together, only to end up tagging along with Tsuyu and Tokoyami, who were out together and also had to bring along Tsuyu's younger siblings as there was no one else available to watch them. Having the chance to interact with the little kids will help Mitsuki with her character.


	48. Chapter 48

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter forty-eight: A surprise double-date that has some kids tagging along

Given how much he has had to deal with as of late, Izuku hasn't had a lot of time to focus on his relationship with his girlfriend Mitsuki, who just so happens to not only be more than twice the green-eyed boy's age, but also the mother of Izuku's classmate Katsuki aka Kacchan, who is a bit older than Izuku. But luckily for Izuku, today was not only a day that he had to himself, but it was also a day where Mitsuki was free, after he called her and she confirmed it.

As such, the two of them decided to have a date day. Soon after Izuku was dressed and ready to go, he met up with Mitsuki, who came by to pick him up. The plan was simple; go to a nearby convenience store and buy some cheap snacks, Mitsuki shoved the snacks into her purse to hide them, then they would go see a movie that they wouldn't have to pay overpriced concession stand food prices for as Mitsuki would sneak the snacks in (this was something that Izuku still objected to on some level), then they would spend a few hours at the arcade.

Mitsuki heard that the high score she got on the dancing game was beaten, and she wanted to reclaim her hard-earned spot. "Fuck being number one on the Hero Billboard Chart JP! I want to be number one on the scoreboard for Dance Craze!" Mitsuki declared. Over at his hero agency well over a mile away from the arcade that Mitsuki and Izuku went into, Endeavor felt a shiver go up his spine, but he had no idea where it had even come from.

After their time at the arcade, Izuku and Mitsuki proceeded to relax at a nearby café, getting some nice coffees to enjoy. During that time, Izuku filled Mitsuki in on what all he had gleamed concerning how Aizawa, who is Izuku's homeroom teacher over at U.A., had recently gotten engaged to Emi from Ketsubutsu Academy. Emi, also known as the Smile Hero Ms. Joke, had long been saying to Aizawa that they ought to get married. Well, it turns out that Aizawa had finally decided to take Emi up on that idea.

Getting into detail about it here would take too much time, though.

"Yeah, I got a bit of it from Katsuki yesterday," Mitsuki remarked, "He also told me a story about how he told his girlfriend, the magic horse girl, about Eraserhead getting engaged, and that the magic horse girl proceeded to ask if there were any difference between a Japanese wedding and an American wedding. It was at that point in Katsuki's story that I remembered that the magic horse girl that he's dating is part American."

Izuku calmly listened to his girlfriend's story, deciding to wait until she was done for the time being to tell her a few corrections about Bakugo's girlfriend, Pony Tsunotori. As the green-haired cinnamon roll and the ashy-haired woman sat at the outdoor table and enjoyed their coffees, they heard a pair of familiar voices call out to Izuku. Looking over, Izuku and Mitsuki saw Tokoyami and Tsuyu come walking over to them.

To Izuku's piqued interest, the two were followed by Tsuyu's younger siblings Samidare and Satsuki. The Asui siblings and Tokoyami were all dressed in casual wear, although the sole Asui brother now wore a hooded long-sleeved shirt under his t-shirt that had the image of Ryukyu's dragon form on it. "Ah, Izuku, Mrs. Bakugo," Tokoyami remarked, "It's a pleasure to run into the two of you here. I take it that you both are having a nice time?"

"Oh yes, Mitsuki and I are really enjoying ourselves," Izuku replied.

"Hey sweetness," Mitsuki began, getting Izuku to turn to look at here. Jerking a thumb at Tokoyami and Tsuyu, the ashy-haired woman said, "I know that these two are classmates of yours over at U.A., but I have no idea who they really are as all who I'm really familiar with in your class is you, Katsuki, and Katsuki's quartet of idiots."

Izuku, after getting over the slight surprise of Mitsuki so casually referring to the Baku-squad as her son's 'quartet of idiots', cleared his throat a bit. "Mitsuki, these are Tokoyami and Tsuyu," Izuku said as he respectively gestured to them in order. Gesturing to Samidare and Satsuki, the green-eyed boy went on, "And these are Tsuyu's younger siblings Samidare and Satsuki."

Looking at the frog-like girl and the raven headed boy, Mitsuki said after a couple of seconds, "Why did you two bring a pair of kids along with you?"

"Because I couldn't leave them alone as there would be no one to keep an eye on them kero," Tsuyu replied, "Thankfully they both behaved themselves and allowed me and Fumikage to enjoy our date as much as possible." Looking to her little sister, Tsuyu went on, "Although that hasn't entirely stopped Satsuki for excitedly talking about something that's coming up."

Knowing what her big sister was talking about, Satsuki turned around to face her. "But big sis, it's a really big day for big bro!"

"And that's another thing," Tsuyu said, "You're more excited for Samidare's upcoming birthday than he is, and it's _his_ birthday."

"What's this now?" Mitsuki asked, both her and Izuku's interest being piqued by what the frog-like girl had mentioned.

Sighing, Tokoyami explained, "Tsuyu is talking about how her brother's birthday is coming up soon. He will be turning eleven." Samidare, aware that he was the topic of conversation right now, moved to hide behind Tsuyu as he was nervous over everyone focusing on him. The sole Asui brother even gave off a bit of a moan that was half-nervous, half-afraid.

"Heh, sorry that I made the kid nervous," Mitsuki apologized, a bit of an embarrassed smirk on her face. Changing tune quickly, the ashy-haired woman went on, "But hey, the little dude is turning the big double-one! I take it he'll be having a big ol' birthday party with all of the usual birthday party fixings?"

"Ehh," Tsuyu remarked, "My mom wants to throw a nice party for Samidare's birthday, but she knows that she has to try to keep it more tame that what you're probably picturing, otherwise it would overwhelm him."

Shrugging in response, Mitsuki replied, "Meh, it's your mom's choice. Oh, you know what would make the party awesome for the kid? Rustle up a pro hero to show up at the party to give the kid some birthday wishes!"

Both Tsuyu and Tokoyami wore contemplative looks on their respective faces. "…Hmm, that does sound like something that I suspect Mrs. Asui would be willing to consider for the party for Samidare's special day," Tokoyami remarked, with Tsuyu nodding in agreement, "After all, pro heroes have been known to come by a kid's birthday party if their parents spring for it."

"Oh, if the kid's mom does spring for having a pro hero show up to visit the kid at his party, she should spring for Endeavor," Mitsuki recommended, "After all, he's the current number one pro hero, so having him show up is bound to-" Mitsuki suddenly stopped short when Samidare began to scrunch up a bit as he let out a panicked squeal. He was even shaking a bit out of fright. "…Is he alright?" Mitsuki asked, surprised concern in her expression as she pointed to Samidare where he hid behind Tsuyu.

The frog-like girl let out a resigned sigh before she addressed Mitsuki. "…Actually, having _him_ of all people come by Samidare's party would actually ruin the day for my brother. He's actually very terrified of our country's current number one pro."

"Scary Fire Beard is a big stinky, and he is made of poop!" Satsuki declared firmly as she shook a fist in the air, "He's also really mean to big bro by scaring him a lot, so no way is he going to be invited to big bro's birthday party!"

"Is…" Mitsuki began, looking a bit unsure, "…Is there a pro hero that the kid isn't afraid of?"

"Oh yeah," Izuku remarked, getting everyone to turn to face him. "If I recall correctly, Tsuyu said that her little brother's favorite pro hero is Ryukyu." Nods from Tsuyu and Tokoyami told Mitsuki that the green-eyed boy was right on the money.

With an assured nod, the ashy-haired woman said, "Alright, then try to see if you can get her to agree to make an appearance." Crossing her arms over her chest, Mitsuki remarked, "But given that she's a pro hero, getting her to agree to make an appearance would be difficult. After all, this is a pro hero we're talking about. Getting any pro hero at all to agree to make an appearance at the kid's birthday party would be difficult."

Izuku exchanged some knowing looks with Tsuyu and Tokoyami before the three of them all turned back to face Mitsuki. "…Actually, it may not be as difficult as you may think for us to get ahold of her," Izuku remarked, "Of course, getting her to agree to come is an entirely different story as we have no idea what she'll say, but it's something we can look into."

"Ooh, ooh, you should get Mirko to come to the party!" Satsuki said, hopping excitedly.

"When your birthday rolls around and a party is thrown for you, we'll look into getting ahold of Mirko to see if she'd be interest in making an appearance kero," Tsuyu remarked, "But we're talking about Samidare's birthday party here, so we're going to be taking his preferences into consideration." The youngest Asui sibling let out a defeated 'aww' of complaint, which elicited a few chuckles from Mitsuki and Izuku, and even some from Tokoyami.

* * *

To their surprise, Izuku and Mitsuki found themselves accompanying Tokoyami and the Asui siblings on their outing. As the teens talked, Tokoyami brought up an incident at U.A. from a while ago where some second year gen ed course girls read aloud some entries from the personal diaries of various girls in the hero course. The raven-headed boy was about to get to a part that involved some teachers stopping the gen ed girls before more damage was done, but he was cut off when Mitsuki, having heard something, interrupted the conversation.

"Hold up there a minute there, Bird Boy," Mitsuki said, "Did you seriously mention that one of the girls whose diary was read over the school intercom at U.A. not only has a crush on my bae here, but claims she can pleasure him better than I can?!"

Izuku, with a troubled look on his face, let out a resigned sigh. "…Please don't go off the deep end with this, Mitsuki, but yes, all that stuff about Uraraka's diary being read over the intercom system is true. To be honest, I totally didn't Uraraka liking me coming."

"Wow Izuku, I had no idea you were so blind kero," Tsuyu remarked, making him turn to face her with a surprised look. "I mean, seriously. I was able to see that she liked you for so long. And it wasn't just me, either. Mina, Hagakure, Kyoka and Yaoyorozu were all able to see it as clear as day that Uraraka was in love with you. She still is kero, but now she's taken to beating herself up for not acting soon enough and losing you to another gi-"

"I'll kick that little bitch's ass if she so much as tries to take my bae from me!" Mitsuki swore vengefully, "Like hell I'll let some smarmy little **** who thinks she'd fucking do a better job than me just because she's younger than me sink her harpy talons into Izuku! I'll fight the little bitch on it if I have to!" The ashy-haired woman even threw a few punches into the air before her. "I'd like to see her fucking try and take a hit from me!"

It actually took the boys close to a minute to calm Mitsuki down, as Tsuyu would have helped them but Tsuyu had to keep an eye on her little siblings in case either of them freaked out due to witnessing Mitsuki's swearing of vengeance on class 1-A's gravity master. After the ashy-haired woman was fully calmed down, Izuku looked at her with an understanding but serious look. "I know that you only acted like that because you want to keep what you and I got going, but I have to ask that you not threaten any of my classmates just because one of them was revealed to have feelings for me."

"You'd be like Satsuki when she got in trouble because she pushed a girl over on the playground because said girl was talking to a boy that Satsuki likes," Tsuyu pointed out.

Satsuki, with a pouting expression on her faced, looked up at her older sister as she stomped a foot. "But I told Lily that I was going to play with Kota!"

The oldest Asui sibling let out a sigh, gently shaking her head. She then turned to return her attention to Mitsuki. "Mrs. Bakugo, there's no need for you to go so far as to threaten Uraraka. Besides, with all that Uraraka has been through, I doubt that she needs a woman a little more than twice her age threatening to beat her up."

Mitsuki looked like she was about to speak up, but she stopped short as she had a sudden realization cross her mind. The ashy-haired woman then proceeded to wear an expression of contemplation as she thought about something. "…Oh yeah, she's the girl whose mom was killed by someone," Mitsuki said, "Possibly connected to how the girl herself had been targeted for assassination twice but got away both times."

The ashy-haired woman looked up into the sky, cracked her neck a bit. Letting out a helpless breath, Mitsuki remarked, "Hoo boy, her mom was killed, and she herself had almost been murdered twice. The girl, as much as I may fear she'll try to steal my bae from me, deserves some sympathy." Turning to look at the teens and two kids, Mitsuki went on, "And to think that all of that shit happened because her parents pissed off the wrong fucker."

"What do you mean, Mrs. Bakugo?" Tokoyami asked, a mildly surprised look on his face as he and the others looked at her. The Asui siblings likewise looked surprised, although Samidare and Satsuki both looked lost and confused on the matter as well. Izuku, on the other hand, looked like he knew what Tokoyami was getting at.

Gesturing to the teens and two kids, Mitsuki said, "Think about it. That Uraraka girl was targeted twice because someone wanted to kill her, and then someone decided to up and kill her mom, which sucks since they succeeded on the first try." Crossing her arms over her chest, Mitsuki had a firm look on her face as she went on, "My gut's telling me that the Uraraka girl and her family must have pissed off the wrong bastard, because why else would the family be targeted so much and so often?"

"That's a theory that the pro heroes who are helping police with the case are working with, actually," Izuku replied, getting the others to turn to face him. The green-eyed boy closed his eyes as he nodded a few times in confirmation. "…All Might even got a few bits from his friends in the police force about how the pro heroes are working to try and come up with a list of people who would be potential suspects."

"I got it from Hawks, who employs me as an intern, that he has reason to believe who it was that murdered Uraraka's mother," Tokoyami remarked, "But he also has reason to believe that those he suspects to have committed the truly dark deed had no desire to carry it out at all, but rather they had been forced by some manner of circumstance to do so."

Tsuyu nodded in agreement with her boyfriend, a hint of firm seriousness in her normally unreadable expression. "Ryukyu is very keen on making sure that those who are trying to kill Uraraka won't be able to do so. But then again Ryukyu employs Uraraka, as well as Eunice, Nejiri-sempai and myself as interns, so you got to figure."

Gently shaking her head, Mitsuki said, "Well this is great and all, but the girl's still in danger until the guilty party's found and their ass is kicked."

"Big sis's friend will not be harmed." Everyone had surprised looks on their faces as they heard a young male voice spoke up. Mitsuki, as well as Izuku, Tokoyami, Tsuyu and Sastuki all turned to look at Samidare, who was looking up at the teens and the ashy-haired woman. "Ryukyu is protecting big sis's friend. No one can hurt her while Ryukyu is there keeping an eye on things, because Ryukyu is the greatest hero ever." Samidare gave off a bit of a smile, nodding once as he looked up at everyone aside from Satsuki. "No one can stop the greatest hero ever."

Izuku, his friends and Mitsuki all felt a bit more at ease, surprised that their worries over Uraraka's safety and well-being were being swept away by the reassurances of a young boy who was vouching for his favorite pro hero. Mitsuki was also surprised by what Samidare said as it was due to how it was the first time she had ever heard him speak. Tokoyami was also a bit on the surprised side as he's never heard Samidare say so much all at once.

Mitsuki, with a bit of a sincere look on her face, smiled a little as she let out an amused chuckle. ":…Heh, the kid here is right." To the group as a whole, Mitsuki went on to say, "That Uraraka girl is lucky that she has so many people looking out for her. It also helps that the pro hero that she and a few other girls intern under can turn into a dragon." Putting her hands on her hips, Mitsuki said, "I'd like to see any of the fuckers that are trying to kill the Uraraka girl deal with a fucking dragon who's hot on their heels."

"Oh I highly doubt that there would be any assailants left when Ryukyu is through kero," Tsuyu remarked, a hint of amusement in her tone.

* * *

After they had a fun-filled day with Tokoyami and the Asui siblings, Izuku and Mitsuki made their way over to the Bakugo house, where Mitsuki told Izuku that Katsuki would be chilling with his girlfriend who he invited over. Indeed, when Izuku and Mitsuki walked into the house, they saw Bakugo and Pony sitting on the sofa together, with Pony showing Bakugo a couple of pictures that she had on her smartphone while the TV played.

"These pictures I took at Halloween last year," the half-American girl explained, "Me and all girls in class wore costumes for Halloween party our class had." Swiping the screen on her phone, Pony said, "This Setsuna in dinosaur cost-" Pony stopped short when she and Bakugo heard the front door open. As such, they saw Izuku and Mitsuki walk in. "Oh, hi Bakugo mom, hi Izuku," Pony greeted.

"I see that you've been letting the magic horse girl ruin the butt groove I spent years working into my favorite seat on the sofa, Katsuki," Mitsuki remarked dryly.

Giving his mother a look as dry as what she had just said, Bakugo replied, "The cushions on this sofa don't form grooves." Gesturing to Pony, Bakugo said, "Anyway, Pony's showing me some pics she took of all of her classmates from Halloween last year, and each of them are in costume as some sort of whatever." With a look of mild interest on his face, Bakugo said, "Oh, you got a picture of what Shrooms was dressed as for Halloween? I bet I'd get a kick out of seeing what Kirishima's girl was dressed as."

"Kinoko was zombie for Halloween," Pony replied as she scrolled through the pictures and found one of Kinoko dressed as a zombie for Halloween; one sleeve on the mushroom girl's casual wear long-sleeved dress was torn horribly at the elbow but the two halves were still attached by a few scraps, one of Kinoko's stockings was torn badly near the top, and high-end costume makeup was used to help give Kinoko the necessary pale-skin and bloody scars to sell the look of an undead girl.

As Bakugo remarked how the job to make the mushroom girl look like one of the living dead was pretty good, Izuku turned to look at Mitsuki. "Oh, I have some pictures of what everyone in my class dressed as for Halloween last year," the green-eyed boy remarked, "Although you may not like what Kacchan dressed up as, given that he claimed it was the scariest thing that he could think of to dress up as."

Mitsuki, as she gave a 'pfft' while waving her hand dismissively, replied, "Oh like hell anything that Katsuki could come up with can scare me." Bakugo's Halloween costume didn't scare Mitsuki, so much as it pissed her off; the ashy-haired boy, according to Izuku, had claimed what he had dressed up as was the scariest thing he could think of, but it turned out that Bakugo had dressed up as Mitsuki.

* * *

Over in a certain shady location that's out of the way, the newly-reformed League of Villains were meeting with each other. After the epic fail that was the attack on the city that was launched by the now-defunct Paranormal Liberation Front, most of what remained of the command structure was from the original League of Villains. Seeing this, Dabi, who took over things after Re-Destro was shot in the back of the head and killed by an agent of the mysterious benefactor who had been providing funds to the villains, decided to reform the League instead of trying to continue on with the Front.

With Dabi were all of his fellow villains that he was able to bring with him; Spinner, Toga, Twice, Mr. Compress and Skeptic, the last of those five being from the Meta Liberation Army, formed the new League of Villains under Dabi's command. "I think that our first order of business is to look into expanding our ranks a bit," the blue flame villain remarked, "Nowhere near as big as the MLA, but I'd be happy with the numbers that Kurogiri, before he got himself captured, said that Shiggy had when they attacked the USJ."

Spinner, with his arms crossed over his chest, said, "That would put our desired goal at the sixty to eighty range. Somewhere between those numbers."

Nodding a few times in the affirmative, Dabi went on, "For now, we ought to do what jobs that our mysterious benefactor keeps sending our way." Dabi then turned to look at Mr. Compress. "You got any files containing job info from our Uncle Pennybags, Compress?"

"There are only a total of four right now, Dabi," Mr. Compress replied with a shrug, "Including that one where our mysterious benefactor wants us to kill-"

The dapperly dressed villain stopped when Dabi held up a hand, gesturing for him to pause. Lowering his hand, the blue flame villain said, "Yeah, I remember that specific job is still in the job cue that our benefactor lined up for us." It was unspoken public knowledge among just the members of the League that Dabi, along with Spinner and Toga who are fully on board with Dabi on the matter, doesn't want any of them to do the job that Mr. Compress was about to mention in detail.

Mr. Compress, the only one who is able to meet with the mysterious benefactor, has agreed not to let the man in on how none of the villains want to do _that_ job. In fact, Mr. Compress gained a lot of respect for Dabi due to how he refuses to do that one specific job; the old leader of the villains, the late Shigaraki, would have the villains he led do any and all jobs that would come their way from the benefactor. A good number of the jobs the late decayer agreed to personally disgusted Mr. Compress, making him shake his head internally at his former boss.

Mr. Compress was glad Dabi was running things now, as Dabi had something that not very many villains still had in this day and age; _standards_.

Stretching his arms into the air, Dabi said, "Well anyway, let's get down to business. Compress, you said that one of the agents working for our benefactor is waiting to meet with us, right? Go on and bring him in." The villains were holed up in a bar that they found, and were in a back room, so Mr. Compress had to go out into the front and retrieve the agent. It took a bit of time, but the dapperly dressed villain led the agent into the meeting room.

Gesturing to Dabi, the agent said, "My boss understands that you're currently looking to fill the ranks here in your little League of Villains. That's why he sent me here to meet with you." Straightening himself out a bit, the agent said, "Believe it or not, my boss is currently organizing what he'll need in order to send some quality persons of interest your way. You'll have just the right muscle you need for your villain club two weeks from today at the latest."

"He's not intending on sending any of his personal men such as you," Spinner began as he crossed his arms over his chest, "Or any of his personal goons that he's thrown together to harass the Uraraka family, to join us here in the League, is he?"

"Oh no, the quality men that my boss has in mind will be tried and true villains, same as the lot of you," the agent replied, "Of course, whether or not you can get any of the men that my boss has in mind for you to actually join your League is up to you."

Toga, with a curious look on her face, asked, "Who all does Mr. Bennie have in mind for us? In fact, what is it that he's setting up to have his guys do?" The agent, with a self-amused look on his face, turned to look at the psychotic schoolgirl.

"You'll know when it happens."

END, CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Author's notes;

I wanted to have a chapter with a lot more interaction with Izuku and Mitsuki, but this one ended up getting a bit mixed, even though a lot of what I mixed in is very much plot relevant to the story as a whole. I will try to put some more Izuku-Mitsuki interaction in the remaining chapters of this arc, as well as sprinkle in some bits here and there in the later arcs to come. But more on that business later.

Anyway, there's something that I realized in this story; after the divorce in the first chapter, Mitsuki has been able to get a new love life, and took said love life for quite a ride. But what about her ex-husband Masaru? Where is his love here? He's gotten pretty much no attention at all here, even though he's a strongly connected person to the history of Mitsuki. Well, we'll be seeing Masaru in the next chapter, as well as his new girlfriend.

And before any of you all say anything, no, Masaru is _**NOT**_ going to go the same route that his ex-wife went down; Masaru's new girlfriend will be in his general age group, with only a couple of years difference at best.


	49. Chapter 49

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter forty-nine: Well now…that's going to make dinner awkward

Izuku was meeting his girlfriend Mitsuki over at her place for dinner, as the ashy-haired woman said that she was expecting a certain guest to be coming to dine with the two of them. Curious as to who this guest could be, Izuku decided to leave from where he was at a little bit ahead of time, so that he would have the time to pick up a little something to bring to the dinner. The green-eyed boy was able to get a since selection of dinner rolls and still arrive at the Bakugo residence about an hour ahead of the time Mitsuki gave him for dinner.

Walking into the house, Izuku was quick to spot his schoolmate Pony, from his class's rival class of 1-B, sitting on the sofa. Seeing the half-American girl gave Izuku the idea that the 'certain guest' would be Mitsuki's son Katsuki, aka Kacchan. The explosive teen himself soon appeared after returning from using the bathroom, but when Izuku asked him about it, he denied that he and his girlfriend were what Mitsuki was talking about. However, Bakugo did know the identity of the 'certain guest' who his mother was talking about.

And hoo boy, was Izuku thrown for a loop when Bakugo told him who the guest was. "Yeah, the old hag decided to be 'the bigger person' as she put it and invite my dad over," Bakugo said to Izuku and Pony, "She wanted to be cordial and try to maintain a 'friendly relation'. She also wants to see my dad's new girlfriend, who she heard he got recently."

"Your dad get new girlfriend?" Pony asked, sounding excited and eager to see the new love in the life of her boyfriend's father.

Whereas Pony was excited to meet whoever the lucky woman that was dating Masaru Bakugo was, Izuku was…not so much. It had nothing to do with meeting Masaru's girlfriend, but rather it had to do with meeting Masaru himself. "Umm, Kacchan," Izuku began, nervousness clear in his tone, "Does your dad know that I'm dating Mitsuki?"

"Pfft, I don't know," Bakugo replied in an indifferent tone, shrugging as he did so, "I guess we'll find out when he and his new girlfriend get here."

"Do you know who new girlfriend your dad get is?" Pony asked, a curious look on her face.

Gently shaking his head, Bakugo replied, "Sorry Pony, but I have no idea. My mom has no idea, and I highly doubt Deku here knows either." Izuku confirmed that he had no idea who it was that Bakugo's dad could be dating right now. As the three teenagers talked, Mitsuki walked into the living room, a slight hint of smug amusement in her expression that made it clear she was eager to show herself as 'the bigger person' in front of her ex-husband and whatever poor bitch that he had managed to convince to go out with him.

Clapping her hands together, Mitsuki said, "Alright kiddies, when my ex gets here, I want you all to remember that you have to act like the better person. I want to see Masaru feel uncomfortable in the house that I got from him in the divorce."

Pony, due to how Mitsuki was being a bit quick, got a little lost and had no actual idea what she had just said. As for Izuku and Bakugo, they both got the gist of Mitsuki's 'plan', which was the opposite of them being 'the bigger person' as Mitsuki said she wanted to show previously. Izuku was about to speak up to correct his older girlfriend, but he was cut off by the doorbell ringing over at the front door.

Mitsuki, letting out a delighted squeal that showed she was eager to piss on the shoes of her ex, dashed to the front door to answer it, leaving Izuku, Bakugo and Pony where they were. "That must be Masaru and his girlfriend," Mitsuki said as she reached the front door. Opening the door, the ashy-haired woman said, "Masaru, about time you and your-" Suddenly, as if out of shock, Mitsuki stopped mid-sentence.

The teens, curious about why Mitsuki stopped, walked over to see what had caught her off guard so much. When they got there, they did indeed see Masaru, who is the father of Bakugo and the ex-husband of Mitsuki. They also saw the woman that he was with, who undoubtedly had to be his new girlfriend. However, who Masaru's new girlfriend turned out to be shocked all the teens, especially so for Izuku.

Masaru was now dating Inko.

* * *

Dinner at the house was a bit of a tense affair for most of them. As it turned out, Masaru knew ahead of time that Mitsuki was dating Izuku because Inko told him, although he didn't know about it until he was told by Inko. As for Mitsuki and the teens, none of them had any idea that the brown-haired man was dating Inko who, while still a little bit on the plump side, was still very clearly making progress in losing weight to help regain as much of her health as she could.

"So…Mitsuki," Masaru began, trying to keep his tone as restrained as possible, "Inko tells me that you're now dating her son."

Mitsuki, similarly trying to keep her own temper under wraps, replied, "Oh yeah, Izuku has really made a mark on me, you know. But enough about me." Turning to regard Inko, Mitsuki said, "Inko, you never told me that you were in a relationship with my ex. How long has this been going on if you don't mind me asking?"

Inko, after chewing and swallowing a small mouthful of food, said, "Actually, Masaru and I ended up getting together sometime between Izuku and his class going to the United States for that field trip and the class's return from said field trip."

"So a bit before the monster siege on the city," Izuku said, drawing an affirmative nod out of his mother. Smiling, the green-eyed boy remarked, "Well I'm glad that you took the advice that Mitsuki and some other women have been telling out about trying to get back out there and to meet some new people after dad's funeral."

"Yeah, I did say you should look for new guys," Mitsuki said to Inko, "Granted, I'm a bit surprised that you ended up springing for my ex, but hey, he's still good, and I bet that he and you will get along swimmingly."

The green-haired woman nodded in agreement. "Oh yes, Mitsuki. In fact, Masaru is even helping me with staying on my diet and exercise regimen that Izuku, Katsuki and all of their friends got me on. Speaking of, as of this moment I am down twelve pounds since I first started." The others at the table cheered in congratulations for Inko. With a bit of an embarrassed chuckle, Inko then added, "He also reminds me to keep on top of my insulin."

"How did you manage to remember before?" Masaru asked.

Again with an embarrassed smile, Inko replied, "Oh, Izuku would remind me regularly, but he's busy with school over at U.A., and he lives at the dorms over there right now, so he's not able to remind me as often as he used to." At that moment, Inko looked over at Izuku, saw the look of mild, but firm, disappointment in his face.

Pointing at his mother with his fork, Izuku said in a dry tone, "You haven't been checking the texts that I've sent you regularly ever since I moved into the dorms at U.A., have you?"

Inko, with a surprised look on her face, said, "That's what all of those texts were about? Sorry sweetie, I thought they all had to do with you excitedly telling me all about how all of your teachers at school are pro heroes, especially All Might."

"No, it was me reminding you via text to keep on top of your insulin," Izuku informed his mother with a mildly resigned sigh, "And only one out of every seven of those texts mentions All Might in any capacity."

"Heh, knew it," Bakugo chuckled, "I had a feeling that you'd still fan-boy over All Might just like you always have, Deku."

Mitsuki gave her son a bop on the head, making him back off. "Oi, leave him alone, brat," the ashy-haired woman scolded, "Besides, in Izuku's defense, All Might is still very popular and highly respected, even though he had to step down from hero work and retire."

"There's a mural of All Might at the gym that I go to," Masaru remarked, "Inko saw it when she came along with me to work out there." As much as she was still ticked off at her ex, Mitsuki used the point that Masaru made as an example of what she said about All Might to be accurate.

* * *

Although the dinner, for the most part, was successful, Mitsuki still felt like she had been thrown around a boxing ring by All Might in his prime. Bakugo and especially Izuku couldn't honestly blame her, given that they were both thrown for quite a loop by seeing Masaru bring Inko over to the dinner and introduce her to all of them as his girlfriend. Izuku was also worried about how Masaru would react to him dating Mitsuki, but thankfully he handled it in a relatively respectful manner.

"So Deku," Bakugo began after he met up with Izuku in the common area of the 1-A dorm building the day after the awkward dinner, "My dad is now dating your mom." Letting out a bit of a troubled sigh, the explosive teen went on, "To be honest…I think that they're really great with each other. Your mom will be far greater with my dad than my mom ever was."

Izuku nodded in agreement with Bakugo; after getting the low down on how the marriage between Mitsuki and Masaru ultimately came to an end, Izuku came to a bit of a realization that a gentle person like Masaru and a…wild…person like Mitsuki ultimately weren't going to work out in the long run. The green-eyed boy hoped that things between his mom and Bakugo's dad will work out well, because otherwise things will get _really_ awkward.

"Oh, Pony didn't say anything to anyone about your dad and my mom dating, did she?" Izuku asked, a bit nervous as to what Bakugo's response would be.

"As far as I know she shouldn't have," Bakugo replied, "Especially since I asked her not to tell anyone about-"

Bakugo was cut off when his squad, those being Mina, Sero, Kaminari and Kirishima, all came running over and gathered around the two boys, trapping them in the center of a group hug. "Yo Bakugo, Izuku," Sero said, "I heard that your dad and mom respectively are now dating! That sounds pretty awesome!"

"I saw the two of them together while I was out earlier, and asked what they were up to," Mina added, "They told me that they were dating, and I then proceeded to spread the news to the rest of our class! I also told the good news to everyone in class 1-B, and Pony confirmed it, then I even informed the Big Three about it, and some of the teachers as well!"

"DAMN IT, PINKY!" Bakugo yelled at the top of his lungs, but Mina and the rest of the squad were too happy and excited about the news concerning Masaru and Inko to be scared. Izuku for once could not blame Bakugo for getting so mad, although as always he wished that the ashy-haired boy wouldn't be so loud. It took the squad close to a minute to let Izuku and Bakugo out of the group hug, at which point Bakugo had to restrain himself from blowing up at Mina, as he legitimately feared he might for real destroy her over her being a blabber mouth.

* * *

Since everyone at U.A. and their grandma now knew about the relationship between the widowed Inko and the divorced Masaru, Bakugo decided to not even bother with trying to keep it under wraps. Instead, he shifted to gruffly saying 'whatever' when random persons at U.A. congratulated him on his dad finally finding someone new in his life. Izuku was a bit friendlier when similar salutations were extended to him by random persons at the top hero academy that Japan had to offer.

"I think that it's also great how your dad is helping my mom keep up on her diet and exercise regimen, Kacchan," Izuku remarked, "It shows a level of care on his part that tells others that he will be a supporting boyfriend to my mom."

Bakugo gave an indifferent grunt as he shrugged his shoulders. Izuku was a bit curious as to why the ashy-haired teen was being so reluctant to accept his dad being an item with his (Izuku's) mom. He wanted to press a bit, but was afraid on how Bakugo would react if pressed for a little bit more details. Izuku resolved to later find out in an indirect manner, by asking those that he figured Bakugo would confide in.

…

"Yeah, he's still steamed at Mina for spreading the news around the way that she did," Sero said as Izuku spoke to him and the rest of the squad after classes that day, "But I think that he's not going to do anything else other than the yelling that he already did earlier."

Izuku sighed as he realized that the squad weren't going to offer him anything useful in trying to figure out why Bakugo would be so uncertain about Masaru dating Inko. Figuring to just ask it directly, Izuku stated the question to Sero and the others, and surprisingly enough got an answer out of Kirishima. "…He told me that it's not so much him not liking it, but rather how he doesn't like how his mom is pissed about it and won't shut up about it." The crimson-haired boy crossed his arms over his chest, nodded once. "Yeah, that's totally what Baku-bro said to me about it."

Izuku was actually a bit surprised to hear the answer out of Kirishima; Bakugo was feeling uneasy due to Mitsuki not only having issues but being rather vocal about said issues from all appearances? The green-haired cinnamon roll did not quite know what to make of his girlfriend being so caught up in the life of her ex, where it with all due respect shouldn't be any business of hers. Izuku figured that the next time he saw Mitsuki, he needed to have a little bit of a sit down with her to discuss her reaction to her ex dating his (Izuku's) mom.

* * *

"Oh hey, sweetness," Mitsuki greeted when Izuku stopped by to see her the afternoon following the talk that he had with the squad about Bakugo's attitude, "What can I do you for?"

Figuring that he had to get this over with, Izuku inhaled a bit before he asked if he could come in. The ashy-haired woman was always glad to have her bae over, so she invited him inside. When he was in the living room, Izuku turned around to face his adult girlfriend and said, "Mitsuki, it has been brought to my attention that you have a couple of issues with the fact that Kacchan's father is now dating my mother."

Mitsuki's perkiness that came with seeing the surprise visit from her much younger boyfriend dropped a bit. "…Yeah, I can't really lie about it, Izuku," Mitsuki admitted, having the decency to sound mildly embarrassed about the matter, "Seeing my ex with Inko kind of threw me for a bit of a loop."

"Loop or not, I think that it would be best if you came to terms with whatever it is about my mom being with Kacchan's dad that bothers you and accepted it," Izuku said firmly, "Negative feelings from any of their friends might end up making their relationship sour."

The ashy-haired woman's eyes narrowed just a bit. "…You're saying that I should just accept it that Masaru is with Inko now?"

"They're clearly happy together, Mitsuki," Izuku said, trying to reason with the older woman, "Can't you just be happy for-"

"No."

The green-eyed boy stopped short mid-sentence when Mitsuki interrupted him, her response having a great deal to do with why he stopped with such a surprised look on his face. With Izuku looking at her in stunned silence, Mitsuki said, "I'm sorry, but the idea just…just bothers me. I mean, my ex is dating my best friend. There is so much wrong with that picture for me that I just can't wrap my head around the idea of accepting it."

Izuku could feel an annoyed throbbing forming in the back of his head. "Mitsuki…"

"I mean, come on!" Mitsuki went on, overriding her young boyfriend's attempt to cut in, "This is obviously some ploy on my bastard ex's part to screw with me! Why else would he show up with Inko around his arm? I mean, seriously! The hell gives him the right to date my best friend like-"

"YOUR BEST FRIEND IS MY MOTHER!"

Mitsuki stopped short when Izuku yelled at her, that being the only way he could get a word in since she was clearly trying to command the conversation. The ashy-haired woman stopped short with a look of surprise on her face as she looked at a moderately steamed-looking Izuku, who was looking steamed at _her_. "…As hard as it might be to believe Mitsuki," Izuku said after he caught his breath from having snapped at her just now, "Your ex-husband is not up to any kind of funny business. He genuinely wants to have a real romance with my mother. And that brings me to the main point here."

Izuku took a step towards his older girlfriend, his firm gaze unrelenting. "…This is my _mother_ that we're talking about here. She's gone through a lot up to this point. She's had to deal with a hell of a lot more hell than what most people ever end up dealing with in their entire lives. I for one believe that she deserves to be happy." The green-eyed boy crossed his arms over his chest, keeping his glare on Mitsuki. "And if being with your ex helps to make her happy, then who am I, who are you, who is _anyone_ for that matter, to say that she can't be with him?"

Mitsuki looked like she was faltering back from her stance on the matter, having been humbled by Izuku's words. He did have a point on how Inko deserved to be happy, deserved to find a new person to be happy with since Hisashi was killed in the line of duty in his job as an international spy. The ashy-haired woman had the decency to look ashamed of herself for even considering trying to stand in the way of Inko's happiness. Izuku saw that his words were having an effect on Mitsuki, so he relaxed a bit.

He nodded once before looking at Mitsuki again. "…They were both single before getting together, so there's nothing wrong with Kacchan's dad and my mom getting together. The best thing that we can do is congratulate them for getting together and be happy for them."

She had to admit that Izuku made a valid point, had a valid argument. Mitsuki felt more and more like dirt as the realization struck her that she could have potentially screwed up something really nice for her closest friend, especially since she had no real reason to screw up said nice thing for Inko. The idea of her ex dating her best friend still bothered her on some minor level, but Mitsuki resolved to not let it get such feelings get in the way of doing what truly mattered, that being congratulating Inko on finding another guy to have in her life.

Also, as the woman who had been previously been in any matter of realtionship with Masaru, Mitsuki would be able to give Inko a couple of tips on what to do to get the most out of bedroom shenanigans with the brown-haired man.

* * *

The following day over at U.A., Izuku was walking through one of the hallways alongside Tenya, Todoroki and Shinso. As the four boys walked, they were met up by Bakugo and his squad, minus Mina who was doing stuff with all of the other girls in 1-A. "Oi Deku," Bakugo began, "I got no idea what the fuck it was that you said to the old hag, but whatever it was it got her to stop bitching on and on about how my dad's dating your mom now."

Izuku nodded once in acknowledgement to the ashy-haired teen. "All I did was tell her that she ought to give my mom a chance to be happy."

"It's rather admirable that you would go so far to defend your mother's right to have a bit of happiness in her life, especially considering what all she's had to deal with," Tenya remarked to Izuku, "And within the last few months, no less. Your efforts are even more note-worthy given that you stood your ground against your girlfriend, who normally has a lot of control over the relationship from all observable angles."

The green-eyed boy simply nodded in agreement. "…As much as I respect Mitsuki, there's only so much disrespect from her towards others that I can tolerate before I feel compelled to scold her. I made that point clear to her when I told her off last night for trying to raise a stink over how Kacchan's dad is in a relationship with my mom." It was true; after he convinced Mitsuki to drop her hostility for the most part the previous evening, Izuku told her that if she was not able to respect others, then he honestly wouldn't be able to respect her.

Izuku feels that he can't honestly be in a relationship with a person that he can't respect.

Luckily for her, Mitsuki came to terms with how her ex was now dating her best friend, and was able to be happy for the both of them. It wasn't an immediate resolution for the ashy-haired woman, and there was still a wee bit of reluctance here and there, but overall Mitsuki was able to give Inko props for dating Masaru. The green-haired woman deserved to have some happiness in her life, and if being in a relationship with Mitsuki's ex helped to bring that happiness to her, then all the more power to Inko.

Who is to say who can and cannot be happy?

* * *

While Izuku and his classmates were discussing the newfound happiness between Inko and Masaru, a meeting of U.A. staff was going on over in Nezu's office. All notable members of the staff, with Nezu himself leading the meeting, sat around the large meeting table in the office. Even the four pro heroes who were recently hired for the secret job of providing additional security, those four being Mt. Lady, Ryukyu, Mirko and Pixie-Bob, were all at the meeting as well. It was indeed quite the gathering.

Straightening up some papers that he had, Nezu remarked, "Well the efforts of both the police and the pro heroes assisting them in rounding up the last of the villains and their allies from the villain siege on the city is going quite smoothly, thanks partly to the allies that had been made for hero society by the Commission. Out of the estimated two-hundred villains that survived the siege and escaped, the police and pro heroes who are assisting them have tracked down at least one-hundred of them."

The others at the U.A. staff meeting saw that bit of news as cause to cheer in celebration. "Well hot damn!" Snipe cheered, "We got about half of those mangy varmints already! The other half ought to be a snap then!"

"The police also have a few leads on a notable ally of the League, a person that they know only as Daruma," Nezu went on, "Supposedly, this Daruma fellow is behind the creation of those very terrible creatures known as the Nomu." A good number of the staff at the meeting all tensed up at the mention of those artificial monsters, enhanced humans that were all granted multiple artificial quirks and mutated beyond any recognition by the experimentation of the horrific All for One and his allies.

Many at the meeting who tensed up at the mention of the Nomus consisted mainly of those who had fought those nightmarish lab creations; Toshinori remembered the one he fought back during the USJ incident, Mirko recalled that one who she read about from the incident where Endeavor and Hawks fought and barely defeated it before the villain Dabi showed up, and those who were at the raid on the League of Villains base to rescue Bakugo recalled the Nomus from there.

Among the staff who were rattled by the mention of the Nomus were Aizawa and Hisashi, who both had very good reason to absolutely loath anyone who had a serious hand in the creation of the Nomus. If possible, both Aizawa and Hizashi would be very much interested in meeting this 'Daruma' fellow where it would just be the three of them in a locked room that wouldn't be unlocked until the two men had their fill of…talking…to Daruma. Let's just say that the talking that Aizawa and Hizashi had in mind wasn't exactly going to be of a friendly nature.

Straightening up his papers again after finding the file whose content he wanted to discuss, Nezu went on, "Unfortunately, select notable members of the villainous force that besieged the city are still at large. This includes most known members of the original League of Villains that attacked the training camp, although we have been able to confirm that they have been joined by one of the lieutenants from the Meta Liberation Army."

"It doesn't matter in the end, if you think about it," Nemuri remarked, "I mean, the police and pro heroes will round all of them up eventually, and when that happens, the sorry lot of them will be thrown into Tartarus." The eighteen-only hero crossed her arms over her chest as she wore a self-assured look on her face. "And when that's taken care of, then society will never have to deal with those villains ever again. I mean, this is Tartarus Prison that we're talking about here. It's the most heavily fortified and secure villain's prison in Japan, if not in the entire world. Mark my words, everyone. After we catch all of the remaining villains that escaped from the villains' siege on the city, they'll be locked behind bars for good."

Who could honestly blame Nemuri for her confidence? In all of the entirety of its history, there has never been a single prison break over at Tartarus; out of all of the villains to have ever been locked up there, not one of them has ever been able to escape. Much like the constant that Toshinori was back in his heyday as All Might, Tartarus Prison was considered by some as a sort of symbol of justice, as it kept those who worked against justice locked up.

Tartarus Prison was very much indeed a symbol of justice that would never be blemished.

END, CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

Author's notes;

This chapter, while also shedding more light on the Izuku-Mitsuki pairing, also covered one of the main side-effects of the soured relationship between Mitsuki and Masaru. I figured that, as the brown-haired man becoming single came about due to the nature of this story, that it was only fair to give the notion some cover. Also, there have been a lot of instances in stories that I have seen where Inko, being made single somehow, ends up back on the dating scene. Granted, she's usually paired with Toshinori, but I figured hey, since Masaru is single in this story, why not send him Inko's way? It's an unconventional pair compared to what's more normally seen, and if there's one thing that I'd like this story to be known for, it's unconventional pairings.

Speaking of unconventional pairings, the next chapter of this story will cover such a pair; I won't spoil the plot of the next chapter, but I will say that one part of the pair that will be featured will be Tenya, everyone's favorite glasses-wearing boy. Yes, Tenya will also get a little bit of love, and the person who he ends up with will catch a lot of you by surprise. I won't say right out who it is that Tenya will end up with, but I will provide a hint; he will end up with either a girl that's in 1-A, or a girl that's in 1-B. First correct guess that's signed gets a shout-out in chapter fifty.


	50. Chapter 50

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter fifty: The class rep gets a girlfriend

Izuku and Todoroki were walking through one of the hallways in the main building that made up a large portion of U.A. High School. The two boys were on their way to meet up with some of their friends, Uraraka and Tsuyu, in the school's library. Izuku and Todoroki had no idea why the girls wanted to meet up with them, as well as why not only was their other friend, Tenya, not among the boys collected, but when Izuku asked about it, the girls said that they wanted to meet with him and Todoroki to discuss something about Tenya.

Izuku also heard a hint of surprised urgency in the voices of both Uraraka and Tsuyu. That got his attention, especially since he heard a hint of urgency in Tsuyu's voice. That girl was almost always impossible to read, so for something about Tenya to come up that made it clear that the frog-like girl was sent for a spin over it was quite the big deal. As such, Izuku, with Todoroki following hot on his heels, walked with determination as he made his way over to meet with the girls he was friends with.

Soon enough, the two boys found Uraraka and Tsuyu in the school library, in a semi-secluded area that afforded them ample privacy, partly because of it being semi-secluded but mostly due to how few people were in the library at the time. "About time that you and Todoroki got here, Izuku," Uraraka remarked, "The both of you won't believe what Tsuyu and I had just found out! You'll both be just as surprised as we are!"

Izuku and Todoroki, both wearing mildly suspicious and uncertain expressions, proceeded to sit down at the table that Uraraka and Tsuyu were already occupying. "…You girls mentioned that this has something to do with Tenya?" Both girls nodded in confirmation to Izuku's remark.

"Uraraka and I first got suspicious when we saw a change in the overall air that Tenya gave off," Tsuyu began, "In all honesty, Tenya has for the most part been a bit uptight and by the book. But recently, Uraraka and I have seen him take on a more relaxed hint in his attitude kero."

"We've also seen him smile more frequently," Uraraka went on, "And in a way that shows he's genuinely happy." Gesturing to Izuku and Todoroki, the gravity girl added, "Also, although he's always scolded Mineta whenever the little creep acts perverted towards the girls in our class, ever since the recent changes Tenya's been a lot quicker in that regard."

Tsuyu nodded in agreement with Uraraka, confirming her story. "Also, whereas before Tenya would always give the usual 'you need to be more respectful of our peers' kind of spiel to Mineta upon scolding him, Tenya's words have changed slightly to show a nature that is more romantic and gentlemanly. From all of this, Uraraka and I have come to the same conclusion." Tsuyu held a fist up at around chest level, wearing a hint of seriousness in her expression.

"We believe that Tenya has a girlfriend now kero."

Izuku and Todoroki both became a bit wide-eyed in response to what Tsuyu had just said to the two of them. Neither of them ever imagined that their studious friend would have ever given any thought to pursuing a romantic relationship, mostly because they figured that he was the kind of guy that would not be interested in it. But here they were, discussing with Uraraka and Tsuyu on that very notion concerning the glasses-wearing boy.

The two boys were still a bit surprised by the girls' suspicions about Tenya, although Todoroki was the first to break the silence. "…Well good for him. I'm glad to see that he seemingly has someone in his life now." The two-toned boy arched a wry eyebrow as he regarded the girls. "Do either of you know who Tenya's girlfriend is?"

Both Uraraka and Tsuyu gently shook their heads in the negative, with the former saying, "Again, Tsuyu and I only suspect that Tenya's got a girlfriend now. We aren't for sure certain about it." Gesturing to both boys, Uraraka went on, "That's where the two of you come in."

"Excuse me?" Izuku said, a slight look of confusion on his face.

"As boys, the both of you hang out with Tenya more," Uraraka explained, "Just start up a conversation with him, and try steering it in the right direction to get him to mention that he's dating a girl."

"If that fails, then just tail him secretly and find out that way," Tsuyu offered.

Izuku and Todoroki were not all that certain about trying to pry into the private life of their friend. After all, if Tenya had something that he wanted to keep private, then by no means would the boys try to snoop around. But here Uraraka and Tsuyu were, asking them to spy on Tenya's private life on their behalf simply because they want to confirm if the glasses-wearing boy has a girlfriend like what they have come to suspect.

After they exchanged knowing looks with one another, Izuku and Todoroki turned back to look at Uraraka and Tsuyu. It was Izuku who took the initiative. "Assuming that Todoroki and I find out that Tenya does, in fact, have a girlfriend, what is it that you two plan to do with the info?"

"To be honest, we simply want to know if he is dating someone," Uraraka replied as both she and Tsuyu blushed slightly out of embarrassment, "If he is in a relationship, then after you and Todoroki tell us about it as well as who it is that Tenya is dating, then Tsuyu and I will most likely cheer a little bit out of excitement for both Tenya and his girlfriend before keeping the matter to ourselves. It's not like the two of us are going to loudly broadcast Tenya's private life all over U.A."

Both Izuku and Todoroki nodded in acknowledgement to the two girls that they sat with in the library. "…Forgive us girls, but given the past track record of some of the other girls in our class, you can understand it if Midoriya and I both have some issues about doing what the two of you are asking of us," Todoroki replied.

Uraraka, a hint of exasperated annoyance entering her expression, crossed her arms over her chest, her face showing more a pouty scowl that was cute than a visage of annoyed anger. "It's not like Tsuyu and I are Mina. We can keep a secret that relates to a boy dating a girl."

After Izuku and Todoroki apologized for what disrespect might have been implied by their suspicions, they both agreed to look into the matter that Uraraka and Tsuyu were asking them to look into. Granted, both boys still felt a bit uncertain about what was essentially snooping about in Tenya's private life, but it was only because Uraraka and Tsuyu wanted to know if what they suspect about the glasses-wearing boy having a girlfriend was true or not, and they both said that they would keep whatever the answer was to themselves.

The boys both felt confident that they had nothing to honestly worry about.

* * *

There was still a fair bit of time left in the school day, so when class work was not occupying either of them, Izuku and Todoroki tried looking into the matter that was the suspicions of Tenya having a girlfriend. Although they had some classes with him, neither Izuku nor Todoroki were able to get close enough to Tenya to even say hello, given that he was occupied in either helping a classmate with an assignment or project, or scolding Mineta over his perverted behavior for the nth time that day.

At the end of the school day, Izuku had met up with Todoroki and asked him if he had found anything out. The two-toned boy gently shook his head in the negative, and suggested to Izuku that they use Tsuyu's idea and secretly tail their friend to find out more. They did see Tenya take off from the class 1-A dorm building after he finished all of his homework; Izuku had also noted that Tenya had a relaxed, happy look on his face, as well as a slight spring in his step. This gave the green-eyed boy suspicion that he was going to meet with someone.

Like a girlfriend, maybe.

"A lot of the girls did move out of the 1-A dorm building and into the newly constructed dorm building for the girls of both our class and 1-B," Todoroki remarked, "Perhaps Tenya is heading over to the girls' dorm building to meet with his girlfriend, potentially pick her up for a date."

"The only girls who are moved in to the new girls' dorm building right now are Mina, Kyoka, Uraraka and Tsuyu," Izuku pointed out, "Some of the girls in both our class and in 1-B haven't moved into the new dorm building yet, and some actually moved back home for a place to stay while setting up the process of moving out of the 1-A and 1-B dorms and into the new girls-only dorm building."

Todoroki nodded in agreement before going along with Izuku to secretly trail Tenya to see where it was exactly he was going. With Tenya never being suspicious that he was being followed, he ended up leading Izuku and Todoroki right past the newly finished dorm building that was just for the girls in the 1-A and 1-B classes. This dorm building was constructed after a request was made by a combined front of the 1-A and 1-B girls, who were backed by many of the female teachers at U.A. Some boys from 1-A also supported the idea, Mineta because it got all the girls in one place and the other boys because it got the girls away from Mineta.

Since Tenya walked right past the girls dorm building, Izuku and Todoroki felt confident in crossing the girls that had already moved into there off the list of potential suspects in the hunt to find out who Tenya's girlfriend is, assuming that he has one. They were also able to cross a few more girls off the list as Tenya unknowingly led them off of U.A. grounds, meaning that, if he was dating a girl, it was one who moved back home while undergoing the process of moving out of either the 1-A or 1-B dorm and into the girls dorm.

Izuku and Todoroki got onto a train that Tenya got onto, him never being the wiser to the fact that two of his friends were secretly following him to whatever his destination was. After a few minutes of riding the train, Izuku and Todoroki got off to follow Tenya, surprised that he ended up leading them to a rather notably high end neighborhood, the kind were very wealthy families lived. Nowhere near the level of families such as Todoroki's or Yaoyorozu's or Tenya's own family, but still more than enough to make the heads of most in 1-A and 1-B spin.

"My guess is that Tenya's mystery girlfriend has a parent with a very high-paying government job, or is a notably successful pro hero," Todoroki said as he whispered to Izuku, the both of them hiding around a corner to avoid being spotted by the glasses-wearing boy. Izuku nodded in agreement with the son of Endeavor before the two of them continued to sneak along as they followed Tenya to whatever his destination was.

Izuku and Todoroki were led to what was clearly the finest, as well as biggest, house in the entire neighborhood, obviously the house of the wealthiest family who lived in the neighborhood. The house was clearly one that only someone in at least the same income bracket as the Iida family could afford. There were multiple cars parked in the driveway and on the curb outside of the large house, with at least one being a police car. This caught Izuku's and Todoroki's attention, and it made Tenya pause a bit as he walked past all the cars on his way to the front door.

Regardless, class 1-A rep was not deterred from making his way to the front door and knocking on it. After a few seconds, the door was opened, and from where they were hiding behind that tree on the other side of the street, Izuku and Todoroki were able to see that, to their surprise, the door was answered by Aizawa, their homeroom teacher. Also with the underground hero was Hizashi, aka the pro hero Present Mic, who is also a U.A. teacher.

Izuku and Todoroki were not quite able to make out what was being said, but from what they were able to see Aizawa and Hizashi looked understanding of Tenya when he looked to be explaining to them why he was there. A few seconds into Tenya explaining himself to the two U.A. teachers, Izuku and Todoroki saw their classmate Eunice appear at the front door. Seeing Tenya, the green-haired girl excitedly hopped up and down a bit before throwing her arms around Tenya's shoulders, dragging him into a hug.

Seeing this display from their classmate, as well as Tenya's appreciative expression that Izuku noticed, the two boys felt that they got the answer that they were trying to get for Uraraka and Tsuyu. "…Tenya is dating Eunice?" Todoroki remarked, a bit surprised to see what both he and Izuku suspected to be the answer that they were looking for.

The two boys watched as Tenya went into the house as Eunice, leading him by his hand, brought him in. A few moments later, Tenya and Eunice left the house, with a man that Todoroki was able to identify as Loukar Raioh, the chief of the Commission's advisory panel, seeing the two teenagers off. Eunice also had on one of those stuff animal backpacks, a bright light green fuzzy rabbit number, that had pink backpack straps. Izuku and Todoroki ended up watching their class rep walk off to enjoy what was obviously going to be a special night out with, of all people, the foster daughter of the second-highest ranked member of the HPSC.

Izuku and Todoroki, both because they felt Uraraka and Tsuyu would want details and because they themselves were curious, decided to continue tailing Tenya as he went off with Eunice to do what it was that they were planning to do.

* * *

The two boys first ended up following Tenya and Eunice to a café that was a bit out of the way; Izuku recognized the place as the quaint little place hidden in the shadow of a hardware store that he went to just before he ran into Gentle Criminal and La Brava that one time. The quaint café seemed to be a lot busier now, which the boys learned was due to Mirko treating an older relative of hers there a short while ago to celebrate said older relative's birthday.

This was followed by Mt. Lady being seen visiting the place on one occasion when she heard they served great coffee, and this one incident where Ryukyu, as she was spotted by some reporters wanting an exclusive with her, caught the Dragoon Hero outside of the café. The patronage of pro heroes was quite the boon to the quaint little café, as it brought it from having only a few regulars that all could be counted with just the digits on one's hand to one of the most successful places in the city.

Similar to how Uraraka Construction was revitalized thanks to pro heroes pitching in.

Regardless, Izuku and Todoroki ended up following Tenya and Eunice into the café, thankful that it was now full enough so that they were not likely to be spotted by Tenya and Eunice at any point. The two boys got a table close to where Tenya and Eunice were seated, close enough to hear what they were talking about but not close enough to be spotted; there was a table that was occupied by one other party between the two boys and the pair of Tenya and Eunice. As such, they were able to listen in on the conversation that Tenya and Eunice were having.

"…Are you okay, Eunice?" Tenya asked, a clear hint of concern in his tone, "You seem to be a bit uncomfortable."

"It's a little noisy in here," Eunice admitted, looking troubled, "It's kind of grating on me."

The class rep nodded in understanding to the green-haired girl. "Well if it gets to be too much for you just let me know, alright? We'll leave if things get too much for you here."

Eunice nodded once, showing thanks for the consideration that Tenya was showing her. As Izuku and Todoroki carefully listened from where they sat, they heard Eunice ask, "So Tenya, you were there at my home long enough to hear some of what Aizawa-sensei and Hizashi-sensei were discussing with my dad and Mr. Tsukauchi. What do you think about all of what you heard them say before we left for our date?"

Tenya held his right hand over his chin as he looked down slightly at his place at the table he and Eunice occupied, a look of serious contemplation on his face. "…What I heard our teachers talk about with your foster father and Detective Tsukauchi is something that has me kind of worried. I can very easily see why the both of us were asked to not say anything we heard to anyone. If news like were to get out, it would be more than enough to send many people all over into a panic. The chaos that would ensue over at U.A. would be unimaginable, I suspect."

Eunice saw the look on Tenya's face; she wasn't quite sure exactly what the glasses-wearing boy was feeling, but she knew that he had to be reassured. "…There are many pro heroes who are strong, Tenya." The 1-A class rep perked up when his classmate spoke up. "Our teachers are all strong. A good number of pro heroes who associate with U.A. are strong. Even my foster dad, despite how one of his legs from the knee down is a prosthetic, is strong. He has a very powerful quirk, you know."

"Yes, I am familiar," Tenya remarked, maintaining a look of contemplation, "Loukar Raioh's quirk is called Aura Storm, if I recall correctly."

The green-haired girl nodded a few times in confirmation right when a waiter came up to the table to get the orders from the two teenagers. As Tenya and Eunice placed orders, Izuku and Todoroki turned to look at one another. "…It would seem that something interesting went on over at Eunice's place with her dad, All Might's detective friend, Aizawa-sensei and Hisashi-sensei," Todoroki remarked, a hint of piqued interest in his tone.

Izuku nodded once in agreement, a look of slight contemplation on his face. "It might be worth looking into, but for now we ought to focus on keeping an eye on Tenya and Eunice's date, to see what will happen." The two boys turned their attention back to where Tenya and Eunice were sitting, but soon had to turn to look at a waiter that came up to their table. Not wanting to arouse any suspicion, the two boys proceeded to place an order for some tea.

* * *

Later, after the time at the café, Izuku and Todoroki ended up tailing Tenya and Eunice all the way to the movie theater, where Tenya paid for tickets to see some cute anime movie that was made by a film studio who is truly legendary in that field. In their efforts to keep an eye on the class rep and the green-haired girl, Izuku and Todoroki also bought tickets to see that anime movie, and secretly followed Tenya and Eunice into the theater room, sitting a few rows behind the two of them.

As the movie played, Todoroki watched as Izuku took out a small spiral-bound notepad and a pen, then proceeded to write down a few things. As the green-eyed boy quietly muttered to himself as he wrote, the two-toned boy asked, "What are you doing, Midoriya?"

Izuku stopped mid-writing and turned his attention to Todoroki. "I'm writing down a note on how Tenya took Eunice to see a movie." Izuku showed Todoroki the notes he got so far which, including the movie note just now, also noted the trip to the quaint café earlier. "I figured that the girls will want notes on what we observed during our following Tenya and Eunice on their date."

"A good point," Todoroki admitted. He then turned his attention to the movie that was playing in the theater room. A hint of resigned somberness appeared on his face as he looked at the movie. "…My older sister Fuyumi told me that my late older brother, Touya, used to love all the movies produced by the animation studio that made this movie right here. I never really got to know Touya as he was gone before I had a chance to remember him, but I bet that he would have loved to come see this movie."

Izuku looked sympathetic towards Todoroki, understanding why the half-and-half boy would be so resigned in his attitude when talking about his late older brother. Izuku never got to meet this Touya person that Todoroki speaks of, but the green-haired cinnamon roll bets that Touya would have been as good of a person as Todoroki himself. Regardless of feelings, Izuku and Todoroki both knew that they had to continue with their secretly observing Tenya's date with Eunice.

* * *

After the movie ended, Izuku and Todoroki followed Tenya and Eunice out of the theater room and into the main lobby of the movie theater. "So far we only saw them go to a nice little café, then come here to the theater to catch a movie," Izuku said to Todoroki, "I don't think that there will be anything of real note to report to Uraraka and Tsuyu when we're done here."

Todoroki nodded in agreement with Izuku after considering what all that they have observed up to that point. "…I have to concur. Uraraka and Tsuyu made it seem like there would be some big shocker for the two of us to uncover for them, but I don't think that anything beyond the fact that Tenya is dating the autistic girl in our class would strike the girls as anything worth-"

"WHAT ARE YOU VILLAINS DOING HERE?!" Both Izuku and Todoroki jumped a bit in surprise when they heard Tenya shout angrily over where he was at. Looking over in the right direction, Izuku and Todoroki saw that Tenya and Eunice were confronting, of all people, the villains known as Dabi, Spinner and Toga. As civilians began to panic and run away since a trio of known at-large villains had just been spotted in the theater, Izuku and Todoroki proceeded to run over to help their classmates in dealing with the villains.

Over at the scene, Tenya stood before Dabi, Spinner and Toga; Eunice, cowering a bit out of fright as she pressed the pads of her noise-canceling headphones securely to cover her ears, stood behind the class rep of 1-A, letting him confront the villains. Tenya pointed an accusing finger at the trio of villains, a firm and serious look on his face. "I have no idea what manner of villainy that the three of you have planned to do here," Tenya began, "But by no means will I allow any of you to get away with your plans!"

Dabi held his hands up in a 'hold it' kind of gesture, trying to get Tenya to ease up. "Woah there, little hero, chillax. Spinner, Toga and I only came here so we can catch the new Studio Finley movie that just hit theaters here." The blue-flame villain then crossed his arms over his chest as he regarded Tenya with a wry look. "We aren't up to anything, if that's what has you worried."

Tenya seemed unconvinced about the intentions of the villains. "…You three are only here to watch a movie, you say," the 1-A class rep said, his tone remaining suspicious, "And let me guess, the day that the three of you were at the mall with the mother and younger siblings of my classmate Tsuyu, you were only hanging out with them."

The three villains looked a bit confused at first, but then Toga, who looked like she figured out what Tenya was talking about, spoke up. "Oh, you mean to tell us that Miss Beru, Satsuki and Samidare are Tsuyu-chan's family?" The psychotic schoolgirl giggled a bit in happy amusement as the realization dawned on her. "I knew that there had to be a good reason for why I liked those guys so much!"

"I'm guessing that you knew because Beru showed the picture she took of the five of us to her teen daughter at U.A.," Spinner began as he addressed Tenya and Eunice, "Then the girl reported the photo to the heroes." The lizardman villain crossed his arms over his chest. "Would that be accurate to say, little hero?"

Tenya was about to speak up, but he was cut off when some ice and a pressurized air cannon attack flew at the trio of villains, making all of them jump back to avoid being hit. Tenya and Eunice were both surprised by the attacks launched at the villains, but they got their answer for who was responsible when Izuku and Todoroki came running up to join them, ready to back the both of them up if need be.

"Izuku! Todoroki!" Tenya remarked, "Boy, am I glad that you guys are here! We need to try to detain these villains!"

"Dude, we only came here to see the new Studio Finley movie!" Spinner remarked. He then shrugged his shoulders before saying, "…Well, it's mostly just Dabi who wants to see that new movie. Both Toga and I are more or less neutral."

"Hey, every Studio Finley movie is a fucking masterpiece, and I will fight tooth and nail to defend my stance on that matter," Dabi said firmly.

Izuku took a step forward, prepared to confront the trio of villains. However, before he could get a single word out, the doors at the front of the movie theater burst open, with the pro heroes Fat Gum and Edgeshot rushing in. "Halt right there, villain scum!" Edgeshot declared as he and Fat Gum made their entrance. Pointing directly at the villains, Edgeshot proclaimed, "We shall not let you cause any manner of havoc here!"

Swearing under her breath, Toga pulled something out from one of the front pockets of her cardigan. It looked like a grenade, but when Toga pulled the pin and threw it, the grenade simply released a mass amount of sight-obscuring smoke. With the smoke providing them ample cover, Toga was able to run away with Dabi and Spinner, the former remarking how he was pissed that he missed seeing the movie that he was looking forward to.

After enough of the smoke cleared, the 1-A students at the theater went up to the pro heroes, who recognized them as students from U.A. They all showed their provisional licenses to Fat Gum and Edgeshot, clearing them for being involved in fighting villains. "I heard about the sighting of some villains in this area, so I came to check it out," Edgeshot said to the U.A. students, "I hope that you kids are alright."

"Those villains didn't do anything, but there was no way of knowing if things would have stayed like that," Tenya remarked, "Thank you for coming in when you did, sirs." Both Edgeshot and Fat Gum nodded in understanding to the glasses-wearing boy. Tenya then turned to face Izuku and Todoroki, a curious look on his face. "I wasn't quite expecting you guys to be here," Tenya admitted, "I suppose you came here to see a movie too?"

Both Izuku and Todoroki looked to one another before returning their attention to Tenya. Both boys let out resigned sighs before Izuku said, "Todoroki and I have to be honest with you, Tenya. The two of us were put up by Uraraka and Tsuyu to secretly follow you around because they were suspicious of your behavior as of late."

"Excuse me?" Tenya remarked, looking a bit surprised.

Nodding in confirmation, Todoroki explained, "It's true, Tenya. The girls were both under the impression that you were dating someone now. They wanted to know but couldn't find out, so they asked me and Midoriya to look into the matter."

The glasses-wearing boy had a look of contemplation on his face as he considered what his two friends had just told him. "…To be honest, I'm not sure why Uraraka and Tsuyu both went through so much trouble," Tenya admitted, "I mean, if the change in attitude I had displayed ever since Eunice and I started dating was that notable to them, why didn't they simply just come up to me and ask me about it directly?"

"Maybe they were afraid of making things awkward," Izuku pointed out, drawing an agreeing nod out of the class 1-A rep. Either way, things at the theater had been resolved, so the four teens decided to leave as a group and return to U.A.'s campus.

* * *

Later that evening in the common area of the class 1-A dorm, the boys had all gathered to hear about the incident from the theater from the boys who were there; telling how they and Eunice confronted a trio of villains and got to meet Fat Gum and Edgeshot. The girls weren't there, most likely they were off somewhere else and getting the story from Eunice that way.

During the story that the boys were telling, the class rep told the others that he and Eunice were in a relationship now. "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold up there," Kaminari said, a confused and mildly surprised look on his face. Gesturing to Tenya, the electric quirk user said, "You're actually in a relationship now? You, the straight-laced, by-the-book killjoy that always tries to tell the rest of the squad and I off whenever we try to have some fun?"

"Your idea of fun usually results in either making a rather large mess, and or causing a lot of damage to the property of others, Kaminari," Tenya scolded, "And for your information, yes, Eunice and I are now dating."

"I always knew you had it in you, Tenya," Mineta remarked, sounding proud of his classmate in a way that only an infamous pervert can be proud in someone for finding a girl, "You finally got yourself a girlfriend." Arching a wry eyebrow, Mineta continued, "Although your choice of going for a special needs girl is a bit curious."

Right away, Tenya had a suspicious look on his face. "…What is that supposed to mean?"

Gesturing to Tenya, the infamous pervert explained, "I mean sure, Eunice is cute and all, but she's kind of on the weird side, not to mention how she tends to freak out easily and at random times, and for no good reason."

"I see no reason for why Eunice's autism would make her any less of a lovely person to be together with," Tenya replied, the firm look on his face as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose showing that he did not like where Mineta was going with this.

Scoffing, Mineta replied, "I'm just saying that you could have picked a less messed-up-"

Mineta never got to finish what he was saying because Tenya, in a rare moment of losing his cool, swung his right foot up and right into Mineta's holy land, scoring a critical hit that floored the short-statured teen. Pointing an accusing finger at the floored infamous pervert, Tenya scolded, "That is an entirely inappropriate thing to say about Eunice! In fact, that has to be the most inappropriate thing that I ever heard you say about anyone to date!"

As Mineta writhed on the floor in pain, the other boys looked at Tenya with surprised looks on their faces. In fact, Bakugo walked up to Tenya and put his hand on the class rep's shoulder. "Glasses," the ashy-haired teen said, "That was the right thing to do to Grape Head."

END, CHAPTER FIFTY

Author's notes;

I figured that Tenya was due to get some love, both figuratively in regards to developing him here more, and literally in the form of pairing him up with a girl. Now that Tenya's now in a relationship, I can get to work on the next chapter, which will show the results of some efforts that I have done in this chapter, as well as the previous one.

Oh, before I forget, this is actually the last chapter of the 'Romance Dawn arc', although there will still be some instances of the romance aspect of this story here and there; in fact, I have a bit of a sub-plot in mind that will be hinted at over the course of the next arc, before it gets the main focus in a later arc after that. I won't say what exactly will happen, but I will say that it will put the relationship between Izuku and Mitsuki to the test.

That's not to say that their relationship will be put away entirely during the next arc, mind you; I do in fact have a number of bits planned that will see Izuku and Mitsuki together, as well as a few bits to focus on the other pairs, like I had said. But more on that later. Now, as has been stated, the next chapter will be the first one of the next arc. I won't say what the next arc's name is here as it will spoil a big event in the next chapter, but trust me; it'll be worth the wait.


	51. Chapter 51

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter fifty-one: Distracting the kids to conceal the bad thing that happened

It was a fair enough evening over at U.A. High School, the top hero academy in Japan. The girls of the 1-A and 1-B classes at this point had all finally moved into the new girls-only dorm building that had been set up. Truly, it was just the girls of those two classes, plus Nejire-sempai from class 3-A, who moved in to be something of a leader for all of the girls to follow the lead of. The girls-only dorm was, in and of itself, a realm dedicated to all that the girls enjoyed.

Of course, there were some mixed reactions from some of what some of the girls were doing. Mei was told off from trying to convert part of the main area on the ground floor into a workshop area for her to work on her 'babies' in, Setsuna was told that she couldn't set up the big inflatable T-Rex standee, Ibara was told that her efforts to set up a section for worship were not needed and that she had to take everything down, and Itsuka was reminded that not everyone would like to have a work-out gym in the main area.

Regardless of the slight bumps, the girls of 1-A and 1-B were getting along great, while wondering what the 1-A boys were going to do with the 1-A dorm building now that they had it to themselves; similarly, the girls also wondered what the 1-B boys would do with their class's dorm building now that it was a 1-B boy only zone. Some of the girls remarked how they would miss sharing the same dorm building as their respective male classmates, and Mina commented that she was fairly certain that Bakugo would maim Mineta by week's end.

The girls all unanimously agreed, aside from Nejire and Tsuyu, but that was because both the sole girl of the Big Three and the frog girl of class 1-A were both absent. As the girls all began to wonder where Nejire and Tsuyu might be at, their questioning was answered when Nejire and Tsuyu both entered the girls-only dorm, bringing along with them a pair of guests that none of them were expecting. The guests in question ended up being both of Tsuyu's younger siblings, Samidare and Satsuki. Satsuki looked excited to be there, but Samidare looked notably unwell.

"Look girls, here's the deal," Nejire explained, "Tsuyu's dad is on a business trip right now, and Tsuyu's mom has to go out of town to visit an ailing relative. There's no other alternatives, so after we went over it with some of the teachers, they agreed to allow Satsuki and Samidare to stay here in the girls-only dorm building." The only third year girl in the dorm building crossed her arms over her chest, gave all of the first year girls a firm look. "I hope that this won't be a problem for any of you."

"Oh no, none of us have a problem," Yui remarked, "Although I do have to ask about letting Tsuyu's younger brother staying here, given that the dorm is set up for just girls."

"We're making an exception for Samidare kero," Tsuyu pointed out, "Also everyone, please be gentle with him. Samidare has been sick all day, and chances are he'll be unwell for a good part of, if not all of, tomorrow as well."

The girls all nodded in understanding, and some even expressed concern for Samidare, who was stated to be unwell. Eventually, deciding where Satsuki and Samidare would sleep while they're staying at the girls-only dorm building was settled; conveniently enough, the hallway where Tsuyu's dorm room was located had two empty rooms between Tsuyu's room and Uraraka's room, those being the only occupied rooms in that hallway. The unused rooms had basic stuff that would permit Satsuki and Samidare to use the rooms, mainly beds to sleep in, so there was no major issue.

Eventually when it became time to send the little ones to bed, Tsuyu had them get dressed in their respective sleep outfits. Satsuki had a cute pastel green long-sleeved sleep shirt and sleep pants combo, and the shirt had an image of Mirko on it. As for Samidare, he wore a long-sleeved sleep shirt with a light pale orange body and dark colored sleeves, and a pair of light pale orange sleep pants. An image of Ryukyu in her dragon from was on the body of Samidare's sleep shirt. Satsuki and Samidare were also both carrying plushies of their respective favorite pro heroes.

When the two younger Asui siblings were both dressed for bed, the 1-A and 1-B girls all gushed over how cute they were. "Oooh, this is just precious!" Nejire squealed, unable to resist the cuteness that was Satsuki and Samidare both dressed for bed. Nejire turned to regard Tsuyu and said, "Oh, did you tell them yet, by the way?"

Tsuyu, with a curious look on her face, asked, "About what, Nejire-sempai?"

"About how both Mir-" Nejire was cut off by Tsuyu who, with a sudden look of realization on her face, rushed over and got her to stop. Doing a group huddle with Nejire, Tsuyu told her that if she mentioned how both Mirko and Ryukyu were on campus at the moment, then Satsuki and Samidare would both become too excited to get to sleep; Samidare especially needed to get to sleep so he could rest due to being sick. Nejire quickly realized that Tsuyu had a point, then when she and Tsuyu broke the huddle, the 3-A girl addressed everyone as a whole.

"Oh, I was asking if Tsuyu mentioned to her siblings here on how both Mirio and Tamaki are now an item," Nejire said quickly, "Yeah, that is the hot topic button indeed! Ah ha, ha!"

The other girls all looked at their sempai with confused looks, most of them able to tell that Nejire was clearly lying. "…No they aren't, Nejire-sempai," Kinoko said, "In fact, Eijiro told me that Tamaki-sempai is dating a quirkless girl who goes to a regular public high school."

Nejire, with a tired and annoyed grumpy look on her face, simply said, "Yeah, everyone to bed now. We'll tackle more exciting stuff in the morning." As the word of the only girl in the Big Three, everyone proceeded to shuffle off to their respective dorm rooms, with Uraraka leading Satsuki to the room she was being put up in, and Tsuyu leading a nervous and unwell Samidare into the dorm room he was provided.

* * *

The following morning saw all of the girls in the dorm building dressed and ready to face the day. Satsuki and Samidare were also fully dressed, and Samidare looked a little better but was still clearly unwell. As the girls were talking about what exactly to do for breakfast, they all failed to notice it when Pixie-Bob, Mt. Lady, Ryukyu and Mirko, all of whom were recently hired to emergency roles on the U.A. staff, entered the girls-only dorm, talking to one another.

"So how exactly will we break it to the girls once Nezu gives us the go ahead to break the news to them?" Mt. Lady asked, "I mean, it's not like the news is something that's exactly easy to cover. It's bound to frighten the girls. Especially when they hear about how one of the guys that was involved in the incident is on the respective shit-list of both Aizawa and Hizashi."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Mirko wore an annoyed scowl on her face. "Please don't remind me about that cockatiel-haired bastard right now. I'm still losing to him in the prank war that we got going between us fifteen to four."

Both Ryukyu and Pixie-Bob gave Mirko wry looks, with Pixie-Bob saying, "I'm surprised that you not only got into so childish and petty of a competition against a pro hero who isn't even in the top one-hundred, but that he's currently got you beat eight ways to Sunday. Seriously, Mirko, parents out there already aren't all that fond of you because they think your hero outfit gives their kids the wrong idea. The last thing your reputation needs right now is for those parents to think that not only do you dress indecently, but that you're also incredibly immat-"

"OhmygoodnessitsMirkoholycrud!" an excited young girl's voice called out very quickly, cutting the four female pro heroes off and making them turn to look to see what was going on. As such, they ended up seeing Tsuyu hold on to and struggle to hold back a clearly excited-looking girl who looked to all of them to be around six years of age. They also spotted a young boy near Tsuyu, although the boy looked slightly older than the girl that Tsuyu was struggling with, but he just stood there with his hands covering his face as he sounded like he was very much embarrassed for some odd reason.

Curious, the female pro heroes walked over to the girls of 1-A and 1-B, plus Nejire. Gesturing to where Tsuyu was struggling with the little girl while trying to tell said girl to calm down, Pixie-Bob turned to look at Nejire. "Oi, can you cell us what two little kids are doing here?"

Nejire, with a bit of an embarrassed look on her face, explained to the pro heroes as Tsuyu got the little girl to calm down, "Oh, Tsuyu's parents are both really busy right now, and there's no other alternative to set up something to look after Tsuyu's younger siblings, so some of the teachers approved of the idea of letting Satsuki and Samidare stay here."

"Oh yeah," Pixie-Bob remarked, looking like she had just remembered something, "Nezu said something to me and the ladies here about how he and some of the guys on the staff approved of the decision to let some little kids stay here." The Wild, Wild Pussycats member then gave a glace to Satsuki, who was still hopping up and down a bit out of excitement, before returning her attention to Nejire. Pointing to Satsuki, Pixie-Bob said to Nejire, "That still doesn't explain why this one here is acting like an entire bag of jumping beans was lodged up her butt."

"Satsuki is just really excited because Mirko-sensei is here, as she's Satsuki's favorite pro hero," Tsuyu explained, a hint of apologetics in her tone and expression. Gesturing to Samidare, who was now hiding behind her due to seemingly being embarrassed, Tsuyu continued, "On a similar note, Samidare here is really excited to see Ryukyu-sensei here because she's his favorite pro hero kero."

Mirko, with a clearly amused look on her face, remarked, "Oh, so she's a fan of mine now, is she?" The Rabbit Hero then gestured for the other female pros to follow her over a ways so that they could have a group huddle. "Ladies, I have an idea on how the four of us can distract the girls long enough for Nezu to get everything ready to break the really scary news to the hero course students."

Mt. Lady, Ryukyu and Pixie-Bob all gave Mirko wry looks. "And what is this plan of yours, Mirko?" Mt. Lady asked, a hint of suspicion in her tone.

Mirko jerked a thumb over her shoulder, pointing out where all of the hero course girls, plus the younger Asui siblings, were all gathered. "We all show the girls here some of the more awesome aspects of being pro hero ladies," Mirko explained, "We each take some groups out, show them around our own lives as pro heroes, maybe show them a few side bits we respectively do. Trust me, it'll be perfect."

"What about that Asui girl's younger siblings?" Mt. Lady asked.

"I'll put the girl in the party that I lead, and I'll throw the boy at Ryukyu," Mirko replied casually, "Given that the girl idolizes me and the boy idolizes Ryukyu, we should be able to get the kids to respectively listen to us no problem. They're both little kids who are fans of ours, so they'll do whatever we tell them."

"I…have reservations about the way you just put how we can manage Tsuyu's younger siblings," Ryukyu remarked, a clear look of concern on her face.

Giving her draconic friend a casual pat on the back, Mirko said in a casual tone, "Girl, you got to relax. I know what I'm doing here. Hey, didn't you say something about the fashion line that you manage branching out into clothes for kids, and that you need a boy to model some of the newly released clothes? Just use that boy over there."

The Dragoon Hero still felt uncomfortable about what Mirko was suggesting, as she did not want to come off as using her fans. Mt. Lady turned to regard Mirko while Ryukyu was having an internal battle in her head about if going through with the Rabbit Hero's plan was a good idea or not. "Oi, Mirko," Mt. Lady began, "What do you plan to do when you get ahold of the kid you plan to put in your party?"

"I have reason to believe that Hizashi is using the boys in Aizawa's class as help in his prank war against me," Mirko began to explain, "The girl is small enough to fit in and crawl through air vents, so I plan to have her spy on Aizawa's boys so I can learn of Hizashi's next move." Pixie-Bob proceeded to give Mirko a dry, unapproving look as the Rabbit Hero broke the huddle and led the female pro heroes back over to the hero course girls and the two kids.

Gesturing to the students and the kids, Mirko said, "Listen up, ladies. We, that being myself, Pixie-Bob, Ryukyu and Mt. Lady, are going to divide you all up into little groups and take you all around to show you all what being one of the most kickass ladies in Japan is like. You'll get to see what life is like for us, as well as see some of what all we do aside from punching bad guys in the face." Pointing to Tsuyu's younger siblings, Mirko went on, "Also we're going to have to include the kids here, since we can't leave them alone." The Rabbit Hero turned her attention to Tsuyu before saying, "Hey Tsuyu, would you okay with me keeping an eye on your sis here for the day?"

"Knowing Satsuki, I bet she'd really like getting to-" Tsuyu began, only to be cut off by Satsuki excitedly cheering and talking a mile a minute. Similarly, when Mirko said that Samidare would be put into Ryukyu's party, he let out a bashfully embarrassed squeal, indicating that while he was happy to get to spend the day with his favorite pro hero, he was at the same time a bit on the embarrassed side, like he couldn't believe that it was happening.

* * *

The four female pro heroes ended up dividing up the girls in the girls-only dorm, plus the inclusion of Tsuyu's younger siblings, into two groups of four and two groups of six. Pixie-Bob, taking Sakaki, Pony, Reiko and Yaoyorozu, decided to lead the girls out on a patrol in the city while lecturing them on the history that she and her team, the Wild, Wild Pussycats, had in the field of pro heroics. For her part, Yaoyorozu felt that this was more constructive and relatable to being a hero than her and Itsuka's time as interns for Uwabami.

Speaking of Itsuka, she ended up going with Mt. Lady, who also grabbed Ibara, Yui and Habuko. The gigantification hero, who recently came to certain realizations due to how much of a boost she recently got in approval from the citizenry from Japan, realized that she had to be an example that others can reliably look up to. As such, Mt. Lady took the group that she had and led them to her agency building, which had just recently finished its latest repairs after Mt. Lady got too excited and went giant-sized inside.

Mirko, still intent on winning the prank war between her and Hizashi, ended up picking Setsuna, Hatsume, Hagakure, Mina and Kyoka, plus the addition of Satsuki, on the basis that the six of them were best equipped to help her one-up the cockatiel-haired pro hero. Out of all of the girls, only Kyoka had any reservations about getting involved in what was essentially a childish game between two adults who shouldn't be acting in such a manner. The other girls all found some degree of amusement in playing along, and Satsuki was more than eager to 'play spy' to help the greatest pro hero (in Satsuki's opinion) win the day.

This left Ryukyu with her usual interns of Uraraka, Tsuyu, Nejiri and Eunice, plus the additions of Kinoko and Samidare. Mirko did have a point on how Ryukyu's fashion line was now putting put a line of clothes for boys in Samidare's age group, and that the sole Asui boy would be the perfect person to model some of the clothing, but Ryukyu still was reluctant to have Samidare do any of that for her fashion line. Tsuyu, understanding where her mentor was coming from and also appreciating how she didn't want to overstep any bounds, called her parents to see if they would be okay with Samidare doing something that big for the Dragoon Hero.

"My mom said that she trusts you to know how to handle Samidare," Tsuyu replied to Ryukyu after closing a phone and putting it away, "Besides, I bet that he'd be happy to do whatever if it helps you kero."

Ryukyu let out a resigned sigh, showing that she was still a bit troubled by what all was going on. "I still feel like I could have done something more appropriate with a young, impressionable fan of mine than have him model some-"

"No need to sweat the details, darling!" an older woman's voice called out, making Ryukyu and her party all turn to see a late-fifties woman dressed like a classic movie director come walking up to them. "We've been needing to do a photo shoot to capture the beauty of the new line of clothing marketed to boys from your brand, dear," the older woman said, "And the boy that you and these girls brought is perfect!"

Ryukyu nodded in agreement, although she was still a bit reluctant to basically use Samidare like this. Suddenly remembering something, Ryukyu turned to address Tsuyu. "Excuse me, but would your little brother react negatively to sudden bright flashes of light like what would come from cameras at the photo shoot that we're about to do?"

"Oh yeah, that would easily frighten him," Tsuyu replied, "Also, remembered when you told me and Uraraka about how music tended to be played while you're doing photo shoots? If music is played, please make sure that the music is not too loud because loud volumes will also make Samidare go into a panicked state."

The Dragoon Hero nodded in agreement before turning to the older lady who was going to run the photo shoot, giving her instructions to make sure the photo shoot that Samidare would be doing will be as comfortable of an experience for him as possible.

* * *

Over in the Heights Alliance dorm building, which has since become a boys-only dorm for the boys in Aizawa's homeroom class, the boys of 1-A were hanging around, talking about what all they normally have on their minds. "You guys know one bad thing about all of the girls moving out of this dorm and into the new girls-only one?" Mineta began, his tone sounding mildly sad, "We no longer have them here where we can see them regularly."

Tenya gave his short-statured classmate a firm look. "Attitudes towards the girls like what you have is one of the main reasons it was necessary to establish the girls-only dorm building," Tenya remarked in a firm, scolding tone towards Mineta, "I'm serious. You really need to show our female classmates a much higher level of respect."

Mineta was about to say something, but he was cut off when there was a knock at the front door, which Izuku went over to answer. The green-eyed boy was surprised to see his and the boys' classmates Mina, Hagakure, Kyoka and Hatsume, plus Setsuna from class 1-B, all standing there at the front door. Izuku, after the girls had asked him, allowed the girls inside, telling the other boys that the girls wanted to swing by to see how they were doing.

"Oh, the girls here and I actually heard that Hizashi-sensei is caught up in something that's taking up a lot of his attention," Mina began, "We were just worried about him, and were hoping that you boys might know something that would help us help him."

Right away, Tenya had a bit of a worried look on his face. "…Umm, there's no need for you girls to inquire about what has Hizashi-sensei and Aizawa-sensei occupied at the moment. They have the entire-"

"Wait a minute," Hagakure began, interrupting Tenya in the process, "Aizawa-sensei is with Hizashi-sensei on whatever's going on?" The girls then proceeded to go right up to Tenya, all of them getting up in his face with looks that made it clear that they wanted more answers out of him. Tenya, to his credit, looked like he was firmly going to keep quiet on the matter that took up the attention of two of their teachers.

The class rep of 1-A took a step back, trying to distance himself from the girls. "Please, girls. It's a rather private matter between the teachers. Besides, Eunice and I both swore to them that we'd keep quiet on the matter, given that we both overheard discussions about it because of the private meeting at Eunice's place between our teachers, Eunice's foster father and All Might's detective friend, and I was only there to pick Eunice up for the date we were having at the time."

This time, the girls that were visiting looked confused. "…So not only does Eunice know as well," Mina began, "But Hizashi-sensei has Eunice's dad and All Might's detective friend in on it as well?" Turning to face the other girls, Mina said, "Ladies, this is bigger than we thought."

"Mina, please tell me that you and the other girls here didn't somehow found out about what Hizashi-sensei and Aizawa-sensei were at Eunice's place to discuss," Tenya said in a clearly worried tone as he spoke to the pink-skinned girl, "It would be nothing short of catastrophic if word on it got out before the staff here is ready to-"

Tenya was cut off again, but this time because Dark Shadow came out of Tokoyami and turned to look at a gate covering that blocked off a large square hole in the wall that was connected to the air duct system that was set up in the dorm building. Before Tokoyami could order him to stand down, Dark Shadow flew to that gate, pried it off the wall, and reached into the air duct to grab something. To the boys' collective surprise, Dark Shadow pulled out a panicked Satsuki, presenting her to everyone in the main area of Heights Alliance.

The boys all turned to look at the visiting girls. "…I think that Dark Shadow has a point, girls," Tokoyami said, "We'd like an explanation."

…

After all of the girls had returned to U.A., the boys learned what all Mirko had been up to in using her party to try and spy on Hizashi to learn more about what he intended to do in the prank war that was going on between the two of them. The 1-A boys, Tenya especially, were all relieved that Satsuki and the girls were not up to anything that would warrant any serious alarm. As for Mirko, Hizashi bragged to her that the reason her plan to use the girls go gather info from the 1-A boys failed was because he wasn't using Aizawa's boys to help him in their prank war.

Hizashi was using _Sekijiro_'_s_ boys, the boys of class 1-B.

As the students were all gathered, Mineta made a passing remark, in his usual perverted tone, how the girls were welcomed to move back into Heights Alliance at any time, as he and the other boys would love to have them back. The girls could all tell that Mineta was thinking with his lower horn, as per usual. Suddenly, Kyoka gestured for Kaminari to come over to her; Kyoka whispered something into Kaminari's ear before pointing to Mineta. Before the short-statured teen knew what was going on, Kaminari ran up to him and kicked him square in his hidden treasure, scoring a serious critical hit.

As Mineta fell to his knees as he covered his wounded holy land, the girls all gave surprised looks to Kyoka, who stood there with a casually smug look of amusement on her face. Kaminari then came over and patted Kyoka on her butt, even getting a moderate squeeze in. Kyoka got the girls who saw this to relax, saying that it was part of what she said to her boyfriend. "I used the pervert to destroy the pervert," Kyoka would later say to the girls on matter after they all got back to the girls-only dorm building.

The students of 1-A and 1-B soon all settled down after the exciting day that they had, and Mineta, right after he recovered from being wounded in his Little Mineta, expressed jealousy over how Samidare was currently staying in the girls-only dorm, being the only boy that had said privilege. This prompted Tokoyami to kick Mineta in the hidden treasure, followed by Dark Shadow throwing a punch into Mineta's hidden treasure when the infamous pervert's hands weren't covering it to try and protect it from further assault. The raven-headed boy knew of the situation his girlfriend's younger siblings were in, and he wouldn't stand for Mineta trying to imply that a ten-year-old boy who hadn't even hit puberty yet would try something like that.

* * *

Regardless of all of that excitement, the students soon settled down, and the teachers, after seeing them all relax and go to sleep, left them be, as they all had to go to a meeting with Nezu and the others on U.A.'s staff. "Seriously, Hizashi," Sekijiro said as he and Aizawa walked alongside their loud co-worker, "Why did you decide to drag my boys into this little prank war that you got going on between you and Mirko?"

"Because she'd easily assume that I'd spring for the boys in Aizawa's class instead," Hizashi replied as he and the men entered the meeting room, were everyone else was already waiting. The three men all took their respective seats at the meeting table, with Hizashi and Mirko both shooting each other immature faces. It wasn't just the staff of U.A. at the meeting either; also there was Loukar Raioh, the chief of the advisory staff in the HPSC, as well as All Might's friend on the police force, Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi.

After getting everyone to settle down, Nezu began the emergency meeting. "I'm sorry to have to bring all of you guys in so suddenly like this," the quirked animal principal began, "But I've just received a report on the total damages that resulted from the incident that happened a few days ago." The U.A. staff members, all of them pro heroes, tensed up. The two special guests also looked a bit tense as Nezu began the meeting. But then again, there was a very good reason for all of them to be as tense as they were.

They were discussing the recent _prison break_ that just occurred over at Tartarus.

"Mr. Tsukauchi, I believe that you said you had the official damage report on the matter," Nezu said as he gestured to the good detective.

Nodding in the affirmative, Naomasa stood up as he held a few pages of paper that were stapled together. "We've finished assessing all of the damage done, and have confirmed that a total of sixty-eight villains had broken out of Tartarus during the recent prison break. On that note, I have good news, bad news, worse news and catastrophic news about all of the prisoners that had escaped." He gave a forced cough to clear his throat before he went on.

"First off, the good news. All For One is _not_ among those who escaped," Naomasa began, "In fact, the prison break ended a few floors above where All For One is being kept. From what we've been able to gather, the force that broke into Tartarus to liberate some of the prisoners being held there firmly believed that they had actually managed to reach the lowest floor that's at Tartarus." Pretty much every U.A. staff member, All Might especially so, breathed sighs of relief when Naomasa confirmed that All Might's most infamous archnemesis was still securely locked up in the lowest depths of the best villain's prison in Japan, if not all the world.

Letting out a resigned sigh, Naomasa went on, "Now for the bad news. The first sixty-four villains that escaped consist of a mix of quirked villains from the attack on the USJ early in the beginning of the school year of Aizawa's and Sekijiro's respective first year students, with the rest of the bulk consisting of quirked mercenaries from the force that besieged U.A. during the school festival that was visited by Azu-Daioh High."

The staff members all tensed up from hearing that, especially Aizawa; most of the escaped villains had tangoes with his brats in the past, and a fair percentage of the bulk of villains that had escaped from Tartarus had targeted his student Uraraka specifically. The underground hero was already paling more than any of the other staff members at the meeting, although Ryukyu was similarly nervous, as she recognized that one of her go-to interns is now in danger.

"Then there's the worse news," Naomasa continued, both his tone and his expression showing that he felt very much resigned at this point. The good detective let out a troubled sigh before saying, "The sixty-fifth, sixty-sixth and sixty-seventh villains that escaped from Tartarus during the recent prison break are some particularly notorious villains that are known respectively as Kurogiri, Moonfish and Muscular."

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?!" Aizawa and Hizashi exclaimed at the top of their lungs in unison, standing right up from their respective seats as they slammed their respective hands on their respective spots at the meeting table.

Everyone else looked surprised at Aizawa and Hizashi, and after Nezu was able to get the two of them to calm down, Aizawa explained after Loukar asked about it that one of the notable villains that escaped from Tartarus, Kurogiri, is actually a special Nomu that All for One had made from the deceased remains of an old friend of his and Hizashi's from their days as students at U.A. The fact that Kurogiri, an old friend tainted by the evil of that most despicable villain, was now loose once more, made both Aizawa and Hizashi feel revolted.

The two guys weren't the only ones unsettled by the names of the notable villains that had escaped from Tartarus during the recent prison break. Pixie-Bob was horrified to learn that Muscular had escaped; that bastard killed Kota's parents, and would have also ended up killing Kota as well had it not been for Izuku. With the understandable fear that Muscular may try and go after Kota again for some sick twisted sense of revenge, Pixie-Bob asked when the soonest she could inform Mandalay about Muscular's escape. Naomasa replied that he already informed the rest of the Wild, Wild Pussycats about it, and that even a few extra pro heroes were going to be assigned to security detail.

"Hang on a minute," Nemuri began a hint of concern in her expression. With all eyes on her, the eighteen-only hero began, "So the bad news is that USJ villains and quirked mercenaries from the siege on U.A. make up the first sixty-four villains that escaped, and the next three villains are big name threats that have most of us on the edge of our seats." Gulping nervously, Nemuri said, "I'm afraid to ask this, but what's the catastrophic news?"

Naomasa let out a troubled, resigned sigh as he pulled out a file. "…I was just getting to that." To the meeting as a whole, the good detective said as he slid the folder he got out to the center of the table, "The catastrophic news is the identity of the sixty-eighth villain that had escaped from Tartarus during the recent prison break. This folder contains what all we know about him and all that he had with him at the time of his escape."

Nezu, after Naomasa handed the folder to him, let out a gasp that very clearly defied his usual unflappable demeanor. That in and of itself caught the attention of a lot of the staff members at the meeting, all of them worried about who could it have been that their escape from Tartarus had elicited such a reaction out of Nezu. "…This is far worse than I initially imagined things would have turned out to be," Nezu remarked grimly as he removed a photo from the folder and sliding it across the table. Everyone gasped as they saw the man in the photo, understood why his escape from Tartarus would be the catastrophic news Naomasa was talking about.

* * *

He stood on top of a large metal water tank on top of an apartment building in the area of Hosu, his old hunting grounds for culling the fakes that had been besmirching the hero name. He was fully healed from all the damage he suffered in his last outing prior to being taken in, and he was also fully dressed in his old outfit, not to mention how he had all of his old gear aside from his katana, which had broken during his last fight.

He looked at the well-dressed agent of the mysterious man that not only employed the private mercenary force set against that one family that owned a construction company, but also hired that League of Villains to do some occasional dirty work. The agent held in his hands a new katana, resting in its scabbard. "I believe that you'll find this to be a serviceable main weapon, a good replacement for your katana that broke," the agent said as he handed the katana over.

The man took the offered weapon, removed it from the scabbard. It was newly forged, with the shine on the blade a keen indicator of that. It didn't have any fancy detailing or decorations or whatever like that; it looked rather plain compared to most other katanas. But the blade had a decent reach, and he could tell that the katana was durable and well-made. It truly was a quality weapon, one that would serve him well.

He returned the katana to its scabbard, gave the mysterious benefactor's agent a suspicious look. "And why, pray tell, did your boss include me on the list of those he wanted to see liberated from Tartarus Prison?"

Shrugging, the agent replied, "My employer did not say why, but I suspect it's because you were among the best in Tartarus before you were liberated. Now that you are free, I believe that you ought to check in with the newly reformed League of Villains. Quite a lot has changed in their leadership and overall operations, so it may be a wise idea to look into it and see what all they're up to right now."

The man glared at the agent suspiciously; the man didn't care for how that Shigaraki brat was running his little peons. But the man did hear about how Shigaraki was recently killed in a massive villain attack on the city. Furthermore, the man was surprised to learn that a man by the name of Dabi, who is one of the many out there inspired by the cause that the man was working for, was now in charge; maybe someone who appreciates his vision, as well as having standards, might be a more agreeable person to deal with.

The man turned away from the agent, looked out over the cityscape of Hosu. "…I've been away far too long. More fake heroes have popped up in my absence, and I'm itching to do a little bit of culling. But I do have interest in meeting with this newly improved League of Villains. Maybe they will be better than what that gray-haired man-child had before he did the world a favor and got himself killed." The agent nodded in understanding before taking his leave, allowing the man to get started on his work. And hoo boy, was the man eager to get back to his work, his cause.

Stain the hero-killer was back on the streets.

END, CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Author's notes;

This is the first chapter of what I'm calling the 'Climax arc', as this is where things will be seeing the most action before there's a settling down period of sorts. But yeah, things have gotten off to a rather exciting start here.

And for obvious reasons, given that a bunch of villains had broken out of Tartarus due to the secret plotting behind the scenes of the mysterious benefactor. Chief among the villains that were liberated from Tartarus are Moonfish, Muscular, Kurogiri and _especially_ Stain. The presence of these villains, now that they are free from Tartarus, is bound to put everyone on their toes, bound to test relationships to their absolute limits. Chief among said relationships will be that between Izuku and Mitsuki, but how their relationship, as well as that of other couples, will be tested over the coming chapters will have to wait until said adventures come out.


	52. Chapter 52

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter fifty-two: A high school couple is solidified, tempered by the heat of battle

Mitsuki decided randomly to throw a kickass party at her house, inviting her boyfriend Izuku, her son Katsuki (aka Kacchan aka Bakugo), and pretty much whoever else felt like showing up to the party. During the party, Mitsuki had her son, all of his friends and Izuku off to the side as she was telling them a story about the last time she had seen Izuku's late father, Hisashi, alive. This story was also set sometime prior to Mitsuki getting divorced from her ex-husband Masaru.

Gesturing with her hand as if she were slowly waving at something, the ashy-haired woman said, "So there I was, chilling at the couple's night event at the bar. My ex and I were standing off to the side, watching Inko and her husband gently hold each other. And then it happened." Pointing her right index finger straight up into the air, Mitsuki said, "I saw Hisashi give Inko's butt a big old grab and squeeze! And this was back when Inko was at her highest weight, so seeing that just confirmed my suspicions that Inko's late husband liked that she had a generous amount of junk in her trunk!"

Izuku, Bakugo and all of Bakugo's friends all looked at Mitsuki, the looks on their respective faces making it clear that none of them had asked for that info. Izuku most of all, because there was no need for him to ever have to know about how his late father apparently had a secret liking for his mother's well-fed form, at least in regards to Inko's rear end. Gesturing to her son, Mitsuki said, "Well anyway Katsuki, how are things going with you and that magic horse girl that you're dating?"

"For the last time you old hag, Pony is not a 'magic horse girl'!" Bakugo snapped. Mitsuki gave her son a scowling look, and then looked as if she were about to scold her son. However, she suddenly stopped and had a slight wincing look of annoyed pain on her face as she scratched the side of her left breast a bit. This did not escape any of the teens, as it happened right in front of all six of them.

Izuku, with a look of concern on his face, turned to give his full attention to his adult girlfriend. "Umm, Mitsuki," the green-eyed boy began, "Are you okay?"

Shrugging, Mitsuki replied, "Oh, it's nothing to worry about, bae. The left side of my left tit has bothered me on and off over the last few days. It probably has to do with all of the time I throw my arm around you and drag you into a hug that results in your face getting shoved right into the left side of my left tit."

Normally, Izuku would persist and ask if Mitsuki was sure. But being respectful, the green-haired cinnamon roll decide to drop the manner. Mitsuki, with a look of mild curiosity, turned her attention to the boys in Bakugo's 'squad'. "So boys, have any of you tricked a girl into thinking you're worth her time yet?"

"There is no tricking going around, Mrs. B," Mina insisted as she gave Bakugo's mom a firm look, "Kaminari worked hard to get show Kyoka that he means well and would do right by her, and Kirishima had to be convinced that Kinoko really does like him." Jerking a thumb at Sero, Mina added, "I'm surprised that Sero here hasn't gotten hooked up yet, and now that I give the matter some thought, I may scoop him up for myself if other girls continue to ignore him."

"Pardon?" Sero said, looking more confused than surprised or anything else.

Waving her hands to cut the subject off, Mina continued as she looked up at Mitsuki, "The long story made short here is that there was a lot of hard work on both ends in a lot of relationships. But all of that hard work paid off, and now U.A. is a dreamland where teens are free to share with one another how they truly feel, to lovingly embrace one another as they explore the very essence of romance."

Bakugo and Izuku both looked at the pink-skinned girl for a few moments, watching as Mina, her eyes closed with a firm and serious look on her face, let a single tear run down the right side of her face as she held up a clenched fist. "…Uh, Ashido, that's not what U.A. is about at all," Izuku pointed out dryly, "Like, at all."

"You have no idea how badly some of the girls at school need that kind of love in their life, Izuku!" Mina declared as she faced him, "Hell, I'm still in the process of trying to scope out potential boyfriends for the other girls in 1-A and 1-B who are still single! I refuse to rest until I see to it that every-"

Mina stopped short when Sero placed a hand on her shoulder, making her stop and turn to look at him. The black-haired boy gave his excitable and energetic friend a mildly amused look. "I'm pretty sure that Izuku gets the idea, Mina," the tape-dispensing boy remarked, "Anyway, my soda here is empty. Want to come with me to grab another?"

"Fuck yeah I do," Mina replied casually as she proceeded to follow Sero over to the snacks and sodas table, leaving Izuku, Bakugo, Kirishima, Kaminari and Mitsuki behind.

While Mina and Sero were off getting sodas, the remainder of the group turned back to look at each other. "…Actually," Kirishima said with a mildly embarrassed look on his face, "What Mina said about some of the girls at school badly want to be with guys they like kind of has a lot of validity to it. I mean, earlier this morning at U.A., I was met up by Itsuka and Pony, who told me that Kinoko was really excited about how I was going to take her to the party here tonight."

The group looked over in the direction of the snack table, where they saw Sero and Mina talk to Itsuka and Pony, along with Kinoko and Reiko. Itsuka, with a mildly amused look on her face, gave Sero a playful slap on his left bicep, only to draw angry snarling and a middle finger from Mina, who the group could hear threaten Itsuka. Mitsuki, fearing that the snack table (a dining table she got from Masaru in the divorce) might get busted if a fight broke out, ran over to try and diffuse the tensions.

Leaving the teens in the group be, Kirishima turned back to look at the others. "…Right," the crimson-haired boy remarked, "Anyway, I'm serious. I had no idea that Kinoko really loves me as much as she does up until the incident where the diaries of a bunch of girls was read over the school intercom system." Kirishima looked down at his hand, a mildly worried look on his face. "I never really saw myself as the kind of guy that girls would ever take an interest in, so it still has me surprised that I have a girlfriend right now."

Bakugo and Kaminari, as they were both standing next to Kirishima on either side of him, gently patted him on the back. "Kirishima, bro, dude," Kaminari said, "There's no need to sweat it. If you have any concerns, just hit up me or Mina for advice and we'll help clear stuff up for you."

"And you aren't as bad with girls as you think," Bakugo remarked, "Hell, you're better with girls than I am." Kirishima, as well as Kaminari and Izuku, both turned to look at the explosive teen, who gave a confirming nod. "I'm serious. I had to put in a lot of effort to get Pony to like me, but you didn't have to do a goddamn thing to get Shrooms to throw herself at you. The only reason it took you as long as it did to realize that a girl had the hots for you is because you didn't have all that much confidence in yourself, although I think it's safe to say Invisible Girl did you no favors by trash-talking your room and saying it was one of the last kinds of rooms that any girl would want their boyfriend to have."

Izuku turned to look at Bakugo firmly, a curious and mildly surprised look on his face. "I'm not only surprised you know about that Kacchan, given that you weren't there when the room contest happened, but that you actually remember a detail like that from so long ago."

Bakugo gave a dry look to Izuku when he turned to face him. "Invisible Girl shot down Kirishima's confidence with that little line of hers," Bakugo replied, "Screwing with my crew ain't something that I can forget easily, nor is it something that I can actually forgive."

"Wow, I honestly had no idea that you're so bitter towards Hagakure for something that she did to someone other than you, dude," Kaminari remarked to the ashy-haired boy.

Bakugo nodded in the affirmative to Kaminari, before turning back to address Kirishima. "But seriously, man," Bakugo said, "You're better than you give yourself credit for. Just act like a good man towards Shrooms and she'll stay liking you. And if you have no idea how exactly to act like a good man, just do the opposite of pretty much whatever Grape Head does when that little gremlin interacts with girls."

The crimson-haired boy, crossing his arms over his chest, nodded slowly in agreement as he wore a serious look on his face. "…Yeah, the way that Mineta acts towards girls is the complete and total height of being un-manly."

"I never knew that height was so low," Bakugo replied, drawing laughs out of himself, Kirishima, Kaminari and even Izuku. As the boys all laughed, Kirishima thought about how his friends had a point; he needed to stop being so doubtful about his relationship with class 1-B's resident mushroom expert. Still, Kirishima wanted to be absolutely sure about everything. After all, Kinoko was his girlfriend now, and the crimson-haired boy will admit that Kinoko is pretty damn cute.

All the more reason for him to worry about if their relationship will last.

* * *

In an abandoned warehouse somewhere in the dock area of a city in Japan, a mass gathering of villains had appeared. Many of these villains were the bulk of the force that had recently escaped from Tartarus Prison, the top prison in the country for quirked inmates. All sixty-four of the rank and file escapees were there, along with six random quirked fodder villains that came to the big gathering, bringing the bulk force up to an even seventy.

Standing in front of all of the fodder villains on a stage that had been set up were the villains that made up the new League of Villain's main command structure. Dabi stood front and center, letting the gathered fodder villains that he was the big boss that they would be answering to. With Dabi were other original LoV members that were commanders in the PLF before that mass horde of villains was soundly beaten in the villains siege on the city.

On Dabi's right stood Spinner, and on Dabi's left stood Toga. Mr. Compress stood next to Spinner, and Twice stood next to Toga, with Skeptic standing next to Twice on his other side. It wasn't just those six who stood on the stage, though; among the many villains that escaped from Tartarus in the first prison break in Tartarus's entire history were three former members of the original League of Villains before they were all arrested.

Moonfish stood next to Mr. Compress on the side opposite of Spinner, Muscular stood next to Skeptic on the side opposite of Twice, and Kurogiri stood next to Moonfish. Seeing so much of the power of the true original League of Villains right there was inspiring to the many fodder villains that had gathered. As he and his fellow notable villains stood before the fodder force, Dabi gestured to them, holding his hand out to them.

"Let's show this country what the fuck we're capable of, you hear me?!" Dabi yelled, drawing mass cheers from all of the fodder villains that made it clear that they were willing and ready to follow the blue-flame villain. The other notable villains were surprised with how well Dabi had taken to the role of leader of the new LoV; Kurogiri, after he had escaped from Tartarus and met back up with some of his old allies, was disheartened to hear of Shigaraki's death. However, he was happy to see that the force that Sensei had started up was back in business, and ready to get going on showing Japan what a terror they were capable of being.

The misty Nomu was interested in seeing where this would lead things.

…

"For the time being," Dabi explained to the rest of the main villains, "Our best bet is to do the various dirty jobs sent our way by our mysterious benefactor, as well as have some of the men do small-time crimes to bring in some income. We just recently reformed the League to a full form that I was hoping for, so I don't want to do anything too big right off the bat."

Most of the other main villains all agreed; Moonfish was a bit on the deranged side to be paying all that much attention, and Muscular was annoyed that one, he had to take orders from this skinny goth fuck, and two, he couldn't go killing as he pleased. But those two were both small examples of disagreement. The other main villains all agreed, Kurogiri especially so; as much as he cared for the late Shigaraki, Kurogiri had to admit that, for the most part, the decaying villain had an 'act first, think later' kind of way that he went about doing most of whatever.

Dabi was actually taking time to think things out, was willing to lay low and play things slowly at first. That alone already got a measure of respect from the misty Nomu to the blue-flame villain. Kurogiri continued to ponder the level of foresight that Dabi was showing when he was brought out of this thoughts by Twice randomly butting into the talk that Dabi was giving. "Hey, you haven't set up much in the ways of a command structure yet," Twice remarked, "That's a very dangerous and risky thing to do! Totally brilliant and a wise choice!"

Giving Twice a considering look, Dabi remarked, "You…actually have a point about how I need to set up a chain of command." Clapping his hands together, Dabi said, "Alright, here's what I got for the lot of us. I'm the leader, naturally." Pointing to Spinner and then Toga, Dabi said, "You two will be the second and third in command of the league." Spinner nodded calmly in acceptance of Dabi's decision, while Toga jumped up and down as she cheered excitedly. Dabi then turned his attention to Kurogiri.

Giving the misty Nomu a wry look, Dabi said, "Kurogiri. Back before you were arrested, you helped to keep Shigaraki's head on as straight as you could. That being said, can I count on you to serve an advisory role to help me?"

"A role like that sounds right up my ally, actually," Kurogiri replied, nodding compliantly to who was essentially his new boss.

Glad that he had Kurogiri on board, Dabi turned to look at the rest of the main villains. "As for everyone else, I was thinking that you all could be lieutenants or enforcers," Dabi explained, "You have the authority to send some of the guys in the bulk of the League's forces out to do some jobs and otherwise give them orders, but you still have to report to me, or either Spinner or Toga or Kurogiri if I'm not available. Sound good?"

Mr. Compress, Twice and Skeptic all agreed to the terms; Moonfish didn't say anything coherent but gave gurgling sounds that suggested he agreed, and Muscular gave a scoffing "Fine," as his reluctant answer.

Glad that everyone was (technically) on board, Dabi said, "Well alright then. Now we can get cracking." Dabi walked over to a desk in the room everyone was meeting in. He opened a drawer and pulled out a few files. No one noticed it, but it looked like Dabi left a life in the drawer on purpose. Either way, the blue-flame villain came back over with a stack of some files, all of them vanilla folders that had papers detailing something.

"These," Dabi began, "For those among you who are not aware, are jobs that our mysterious benefactor has lined up for us to do for him, partly because he doesn't want them associated with him, partly because no one in his own mercenary force can't do it, but mostly because he wants the jobs done discreetly. Feel free to go over them, and if any strike your fancy, feel free to take them up. If there are some left that none of you want to do, keep in mind that we have a force of rank and file, so we can just make some of them do the jobs we don't feel like doing."

The stack was first handed to Spinner, who passed the files he looked at to his right over to Twice, who continued to pass on the files when he was done looking at them. Most of the jobs from the mysterious benefactor involved intimidating small privately owned businesses in some fashion, or infiltrating some company to discreetly siphon anything out, ranging from whatever value the company had in terms of income and stock, or secret info the company may have.

"Woah, our mysterious benefactor must be pretty ballsy if he wants us to do _this_ job for him," Spinner remarked as he looked over a file that caught his interest, "It's a job to assassinate the pro hero Mt. Lady!"

"A job to kill someone!" Muscular remarked in an excited tone, "About damn time! Let me see that one, lizard boy!" Muscular tired reaching for the file to snatch it out of Spinner's hands, but the lizardman villain pulled back a bit, holding the file close to his chest.

Giving Muscular a dry, mildly unamused look, Dabi remarked, "Muscular, with all due respect, you don't quite have what it takes to do an assassination job. It requires a level of discretion that you simply don't possess." The other original members of the League all agreed with Dabi, and Kurogiri even said that Muscular was more reckless than the late Shigaraki. Given the kind of person that the late decayer was, Kurogiri had just made a really powerful point.

"Yes, Spinner would be perfect for the job," Kurogiri remarked, "However, I believe that it ought to be entrusted to someone else."

"Like me!" Muscular declared, jerking a thumb at his chest.

The misty Nomu turned to give Muscular what seemed to be a dry look. "…Actually, I was thinking of Moonfish for this one," Kurogiri remarked, "Despite his nature, Moonfish can be an effective killer while maintaining as much stealth as possible. He can also control his quirk quite well, and given how his quirk works, he can send an attack in from a distance and strike down the target before she even knows what hit her."

The other main villains all nodded in agreement with the layout for the plan that Kurogiri had come up with. "Alright, we'll give the Mt. Lady killing job to Moonfish," Dabi replied. For his part, Moonfish simply said something about 'sinking his teeth into giant flesh'. The bound villain was still creepy as all get out, but there was no denying the quality of his work as an effective villain when it came down to it.

Muscular was still pissed that he was denied a chance to kill someone, though.

* * *

The morning following the party at Mitsuki's place, Kirishima was walking along on a sidewalk somewhere in the city; there were no classes at U.A. today because all of the staff were busy for some odd reason, to Kirishima had some freedom to get out and stretch a bit. The crimson-haired boy was dressed casually, given that he didn't really have a need to go about in his U.A. uniform as, had been previously stated, there are no classes today.

Kirishima was still deep in thought about what his friends told him last night at the party, how he really ought to have more faith in himself when it came to maintaining the relationship that he found himself in. Kirishima eventually reached a stoplight, and had to press a button on a street signal to turn the little red hand into a little white walking person. As Kirishima waited for the signal to turn so he could cross the street, he heard a familiar female voice call out to him. He turned to see, and Kirishima was a bit surprised to see that it was Kinoko, the girl that he was thinking about, who was running up to him.

The brown-haired girl was also dressed casually, wearing a copy of one of her dresses that made her look something like a Victorian-era doll. "What are you up to right now, Eijiro?" Kinoko asked in a curious tone once she had reached him.

"Oh, I was just out for a walk to clear my head, is all," Kirishima replied. He turned his head to more fully address his girlfriend. "And you?"

Kinoko rolled her eyes, as if to show some level of annoyance. …Well, Kirishima only saw Kinoko's one eye was wasn't obscured by her bangs roll, but he suspected that both eyes had rolled to show annoyance. "You remember my classmate Togaru, right?"

"He's the mantis dude that wants to fight Bakugo, if I recall correctly," Kirishima replied.

The mushroom girl nodded a few times in confirmation. "Yeah, well get this. Earlier over at U.A., Ibara was going on as per usual about how our classmate Akuma is 'evil incarnate' and an agent who would see the devil rise to power, and Akuma in turn was grilling Ibara over her being overly devoted to her faith. While all of that was going on, Togaru shouted at the both of them to kiss and make out already."

Kinoko sucked in a breath, the tone of which suggested that what her classmate did wasn't the brightest move in the world. "…Yeah, that really set Ibara off, causing her to go into a tangent that I doubt has stopped yet. As for Akuma, after he got over the initial shock of what Togaru shouted at him and Ibara, he proceeded to laugh his butt off. Akuma apparently found a lot of amusement in what Togaru shouted at him and Ibara."

Kirishima nodded a bit in understanding, getting a decent idea of what all had gone down. "So Ibara is now pissed that Togaru vaguely paired her up with Akuma, who is a practicing Satanist." Kinoko nodded in confirmation, and Kirishima then let out a mild chuckle before he said, "Yeah, I can see how that could put a thorn in the side of someone like Ibara. After all, given how much she puts into her-"

"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"

Kirishima and Kinoko both stopped short when they heard a woman civilian cry out in alarmed fear. Without thinking on it, the two heroes-in-training rushed off in the direction of the scream. Soon enough, they arrived on the scene of a number of civilians fleeing from the sight of a villain that looked oddly familiar to Kirishima and Kinoko, given that the villain resembled one of the guys who had attacked the training camp a while ago, during the incident where Bakugo had been temporarily kidnapped.

Kinoko took a step back, gulping a bit out of nervousness as she seemed to recognize the villain that was on a rampage, making his teeth grow to ridiculous lengths. "That's…that's Moonfish," the mushroom girl said, "I recognize him from some files that Sekijiro-sensei showed me and the rest of the class on the villains that attacked the training camp a while ago. He's this dangerous villain that's supposed to be on death row." Kinoko gently shook her head, as if out of a sense of disbelief. "…He's supposed to be in Tartarus right now. So what's he doing out here in public in broad daylight?"

"No clue," Kirishima said as he instantly activated his quirk, "But like hell we'll give him any time to get back to whatever the hell he was doing before he was arrested!" Right away, Kirishima rushed off to confront Moonfish, running right up to him and slugging him really hard on his left side, sending the death row villain reeling right into the nearest obstacle, which was a small family car.

The villain, using his quirk to make his teeth grow so that said teeth could be used to prop himself back up, recovered enough before turning to face Kirishima. "Must get…flesh…" the creepy leather-bound villain said, "…Sink teeth into…giant flesh…"

The crimson-haired boy pointed at Moonfish. "Alright. You're creepy." Out of the corner of his eye, Kirishima caught Kinoko getting the last of the civilians out of there, thus allowing plenty of room for the Moonfish problem to be handled without risk of civilians getting hurt in the process. Speaking of the villain, Moonfish sent a long deluge of his growing teeth right at the hard boy of class 1-A. The way that all of those long, growing teeth came flying at him reminded Kirishima of an early encounter he had when he started out interning under Fat Gum.

With that in mind, Kirishima activated Red Riot Unbreakable, making any and all of Moonfish's growing teeth that flew at him shatter and break on impact. As he tanked the villain's dental assault, Kirishima pushed on through, stepping closer and closer towards Moonfish in a bit to try and give him one good punch to the side of his head in hopes that it would knock him out. About halfway through his path to Moonfish, Kirishima felt the assault from his death row foe lighten up considerably. In fact, the teeth stopped coming at him altogether.

Looking over, Kirishima saw Moonfish gasping, struggling to draw in breaths of air. It did not take long for Moonfish to fall to his knees and collapse on the ground. To a bit of amusement from Kirishima, he saw small mushrooms pop up on Moonfish, growing on him. A few of the mushrooms even tumbled out of the escaped villain's mouth as he slowed in his thrashing. The villain soon stopped struggling, although he still lived.

With the threat secured, Kirishima turned around to look at Kinoko, who he saw aiming her left hand at Moonfish while also aiming one of her special squirt guns that she held in her right hand. "Heh, thanks for the assist, Kinoko," Kirishima remarked as he ended the use of his Red Riot Unbreakable, then went from regular hardness back to regular Kirishima. The mushroom girl, after she calmed down from the excitement of having fought a dangerous and notorious villain, ran right over to Kirishima.

To the hardening quirk boy's surprise, Kinoko jumped into his arms, making him act quick to catch her. Kinoko was gently crying, a sign that she was rattled by the experience of having to fight a villain as big as Moonfish. Kirishima, to his credit, gently wrapped his arms around his girlfriend, giving her a reassuring hug to try and calm her down. As the two heroes-in-training stood there near the villain that they took down together, some civilians, now that the coast was clear, came out to see the defeated villain.

A few even cheered for the young heroes-in-training that defeated the dangerous villain on their own, and some even took some pictures on their phones of Kirishima and Kinoko embracing one another like that. The two teens did not notice much of anything, up until a few pro heroes came on scene to try and handle damage control. Luckily, one of said pro heroes was Fat Gum, and when he got it that the villain was not only already defeated but that interns he employed were the ones who took the villain out, he was over the moon with joy and pride in the work that the two young heroes had done.

* * *

Due to the presence of someone that everyone knew full well was supposed to be in Tartarus Prison out in the main part of the city, all U.A. students were ordered back to the campus. This saw a number of hero course students, many of which were more annoyed than anything else at being ordered back, stroll through the front gates of the academy's grounds. As many of the teens filed in, Kirishima and Kinoko ended up entering together, and when they were they were met up by a number of 1-A and 1-B students, their classmates slash schoolmates.

Mina, with a giddy look of amusement on her face, showed Kirishima and Kinoko an online article that she had pulled up on her smartphone; the article went on about how the two of them, both interns employed (at the moment) by Fat Gum, had been the ones to defeat the escaped death row villain, and that images of the two of them embracing each other were already going about. Some fans of Fat Gum had even dubbed the couple of his interns as 'Red Mage', a mix of the respective hero aliases of Kirishima and Kinoko.

Some of the respective friends of Kirishima and Kinoko were about to congratulate the two of them for becoming so popular, but they were cut off when the whole of class 1-A and class 1-B were met up by Aizawa, Hizashi and Sekijiro, who gathered the combined fifty students and had them follow along over to Gym Gamma, the closest location where all of them could meet and discuss what had happened without random interference from others at U.A.

"As I'm sure you kids have all already heard," Sekijiro began as he addressed the students as a whole, "Your schoolmates Komori and Kirishima took out a villain together a little under an hour ago. Normally, this wouldn't be too much of an issue, given that said villain was on a bit of a rampage and both of your classmates in question have their provisional licenses. In fact, both of them are being praised for their actions as we all speak."

"But here's the thing, listeners," Hizashi remarked, his tone showing trouble, "The villain that your two schoolmates took out is a death row villain who is supposed to be locked up over at Tartarus Prison."

The gathered students all murmured amongst themselves in unsure, mildly rattled tones. As they were all murmuring, the 1-A and 1-B students were all cut off when a door leading into Gym Gamma opened. The teachers all turned to look, but saw that it was just the Big Three entering the gym. "You said you wanted to see us, senseis?" Mirio called over to Aizawa, Hizashi and Sekijiro as he, Tamaki and Nejire came over to them.

"You also mentioned something about the incident where Kirishima and Kinoko took out a villain that escaped from Tartarus," Nejire remarked, her curious tone showing a mild hint of worry, "This doesn't have to do with the mass prison break out of Tartarus that Mirko-sensei told me about, does it?" The instant that the sole girl in the Big Three said 'mass prison break out of Tartarus', all of the 1-A and 1-B students began to freak out to varying degrees; it had to take Hizashi shouting over all of them with his quick to get all of them to settle down.

The senseis had the Big Three join the first years, with Mirio and Tamaki both giving Nejire scolding looks over how her slip of the tongue made the first years all freak out. "…Although we wanted the news broken to you brats in a more tactful manner, it's true," Aizawa remarked, his tone making his clear that he wished that what he and the others had to inform the students about was not true. The underground hero gave a resigned sigh as he said, "A few days ago, a total of sixty-eight villains, all with quirks of varying levels of danger and power, had escaped Tartarus Prison during the night."

"A few days ago, Aizawa and I had discussed some details about the prison break the day after it happened," Hizashi said, "We were helping Detective Naomasa of the police force, as well as Loukar Raioh of the HPSC, set up the base of a game plan that the heroes, police and the good folks at the commission would do to go about gathering back up all of the escaped villains." The cockatiel-haired hero gestured to where Eunice and Tenya stood in the crowd. "Both Sirknight and Iida were there and heard some details, given that the meeting was at Loukar's place and he's Sirknight's guardian."

"So Tenya and Eunice had details about it for the last few days now?!" Hagakure exclaimed, "Well why didn't they say anything to us about it sooner?"

Tenya, giving a firm sigh, explained, "Both Eunice and I were asked to keep the matter to ourselves, given the sensitivity of the situation. But then again, since a notable death row villain that was being held at Tartarus was seen in the city in broad daylight less than an hour ago, I can see why the senseis would figure there's no longer any point in trying to keep the information concealed from all of us."

"And that's another thing," Mina remarked as she pointed at Tenya, "I can understand how Eunice would know given the meeting took place where she lives with her foster-dad. But how do you know about it?"

"I came to Eunice's residence at the time the meeting took place because I was picking her up for our date we were having that day," Tenya replied dryly. Mina, as well as a few others who were looking like they wanted to grill the glasses-wearing boy for details, backed down when they had been reminded that the class 1-A rep was dating Eunice now. Since everyone had settled back down, the senseis were able to continue going over details with the students about what all they were going to do in light of the prison break out of Tartarus.

Clearing his throat, Aizawa said, "Yes, well first things first is that you brats ought to be informed about who all exactly had broken out of Tartarus."

Nodding in agreement, Sekijiro said, "First off, the main bulk of the escaped villains consists of a roughly equal mix of villains from the USJ attack early in the beginning of your first year, and some of the quirked mercenaries from the force that laid siege to U.A. during the school festival we had that was visited by Azu-Daioh High. This main bulk makes up most of the sixty-eight that had escaped."

The hero course students all began to freak out a little, worried about so many dangerous villains now on the loose. The original twenty in class 1-A were worried about the villains that were from the USJ attack, and all of the students there, regardless of class number or year, were all worried about the quirked mercenaries from the siege on the school from a short while ago; that worry about the quirked mercenaries was especially so for Uraraka, as those very mercenaries are from the group that had/might still be actively trying to kill her. It's also believed that the same mercenary group is responsible for the successful murder of Uraraka's mom.

"There's also how, aside from the mass bulk of villains, a few notable villains had also escaped from Tartarus," Aizawa remarked, "Now before you all start freaking out, rest assured that the really powerful villain that All Might defeated in Kamino is still locked up down in Tartarus, as the prison break ended a few floors above where that villain is being kept." A number of the students, such as Izuku and Mirio in particular, sighed in relief when the senseis confirmed that All For One was not among the villains who escaped.

With a troubled, resigned look on his face, Aizawa gently shook his head. "…That still doesn't change how a few notable villains still escaped from Tartarus," the underground hero went on, "Such as Moonfish, who the heroes were luckily able to recapture earlier thanks to Kirishima and Komori's efforts. But Moonfish is far from the only example."

"In addition to that creepy, leather-bound bastard," Hizashi remarked as he counted villains off of his fingertips, "We also got word that the villain Muscular had also escaped." Hearing that set off alarms in the heads of many of the original 1-A and 1-B students, who either heard of that killer villain's actions during the training camp incident, or in Izuku's case, had actually fought against Muscular. The fact that so dangerous a man was now loose and on the streets did all of the hero course students no favors.

Aizawa let out a troubled sigh, one that Hizashi shared. "…The misty villain who was part of the League of Villains, Kurogiri, is also among the villains that escaped out of Tartarus," Aizawa said, "That being said, it could spell disaster for the heroes if Kurogiri were to reunite with his old allies in the League." To the hero course students as a whole, Aizawa said, "Thankfully, that is it for the notable villains that escaped from Tartarus."

"Hang on, senseis," Nejire said as she raised a hand, "Mirko-sensei told me about how everyone was freaking out because Stain the Hero Killer is also one of the escaped villains. Shouldn't we discuss that as well?"

"STAIN ESCAPED?!" all of the 1-A and 1-B students exclaimed in unison, all of them very clearly rattled by that news that the Hero Killer was now on the loose once again. The teachers, as well as both Mirio and Tamaki, all turned to look at Nejire, giving her serious glares that made the sole girl of the Big Three shrink down a bit out of embarrassment.

Yeah. Things were looking very dicey for the heroes now, what with sixty-eight villains having escaped from Tartarus, with one of said villains being the one with the highest kill count out of any and all villains in the prison's entire history. It had to take Hizashi shouting over all of the students again to get them all to settle back down, with only Eunice having a minor freak out due to the loud volume everything was at. Luckily for the autistic green-haired girl, Tenya was right next to her and was able to get her to calm back down.

After things were settled back down, Aizawa looked over all of the hero course students. "Luckily for the pro heroes of Japan," Aizawa began, "We aren't completely alone on this matter. In an agreement made with some quirked heroes over in the United States of America, a party representing the States is coming over to Japan to help with rounding up the last of the influence of various and now defunct villain organizations."

Nodding in confirmation, Sekijiro said, "As a matter of fact, one of the members of the party coming over from the United States to help us with rounding up villainous influence here is actually someone you kids should all be familiar with, given that his school came here to have that team battle event against U.A."

"Hang on, Sekijiro-sensei," Itsuka spoke up, "Are you suggesting that one of the students from the Royal Woods High team that came here to face us is coming back to Japan to assist with all of the work the Japanese pro heroes are doing?"

The Blood Hero nodded in confirmation to the question his student's class rep asked. "Indeed, Kendo. We'll be seeing Sengoku come on by to help out with the villain round-up."

"The Samurai Hero," Todoroki remarked, his memory sparked by the mention of Aggro Ace, the half-Japanese half-Swedish young adult with the fire attribute Sacred Heritage quirk. Bringing someone like Aggro over from the United States to help with the villain round-up in Japan made a lot of sense; not only are Sacred Heritage quirks beyond powerful, but the Sacred Heritage quirk user that was coming over to Japan is fluent in Japanese, meaning that there wouldn't be a language barrier to worry about.

The senseis all nodded in confirmation. "From what I heard on the matter, listeners," Hizashi said to all of the students, "Sengoku will be arriving as part of a party of six, the other five members of said party consisting of three representatives from the United States government and quirked hero management association, Sengoku's protégé, and a girl that's dating Sengoku." Giving a shrug, Hizashi said, "My guess about Sengoku's girlfriend is that Sengoku wanted to treat her to an international trip."

"The party of six that Sengoku will be a part of is expected to arrive in Japan early tomorrow morning," Aizawa informed the students, "Since he's coming to help out rather than as part of a school team aiming to fight any of you, please try to show Sengoku and his party the necessary level of courtesy, alright?" The students all agreed to be on their best behavior, drawing nods of approval out of all three of the teachers.

Sure, things were looking rather scary right now for the hero course students, what with a bunch of villains having escaped from Tartarus, some of which are notable villains, up to and including the Hero Killer himself. But many of Japan's pro heroes were already mobilized to round up the last of various villains' influence, so there's already a surplus of available manpower to help round up all of the escaped villains. Not only that, but a Sacred Heritage quirk user was on his way from the United States to assist the Japanese pro heroes.

The hero course students felt a bit more at ease now, and due to the time when they were dismissed by the senseis, they all returned to their dorms for the night. This meant that the girls of 1-A and 1-B, plus Nejire, all went to the girls-only dorm. However, before she left with the other girls in 1-B, Kinoko ran up to Kirishima, jumped up at him as she threw her arms around his shoulders, then pulled herself up close to kiss Kirishima. The mushroom girl let go, gave an embarrassed, blushing smile, and then turned around and ran a bit in order to catch up with her fellow class 1-B girls.

Kirishima, with a bit of an appreciative look on his face, couldn't help but give a small but sincere smile.

END, CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Author's notes;

I know that this story is supposed to be about the relationship between Izuku and Mitsuki, but there are other couples here as well. As such, I wanted to put a bit of focus on one of said couples here, thusly I gave Kirishima and Kinoko sometime in the spotlight, showing the two of them taking down Moonfish together. The act not only helped to solidify the bond between the two of them, but it also got them some measure of fame, as well as citizens dubbing them with a couple name on the news forums.

But not everything is fun and games, as the U.A. hero students were informed of the extent of the prison break out of Tartarus, how a bunch of villains, some of which quite notable, had escaped. The heroes are in the process of gathering up what they will need in order to re-capture all of the escaped villains, as well as snuff out what influence of various villain groups is still left out there; you can expect All For One's buddy, Doctor Daruma, to be on that list as well. Not only are the pro heroes of Japan beginning to mobilize, but they're also calling in some aid from outside of the country.

You can expect said aid to arrive in the next chapter.


	53. Chapter 53

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter fifty-three: Bulk of Muscle versus Flames of Gold

When word reached the new League of Villains about the defeat and sub sequent arrest of Moonfish, the remainder of the command structure (i.e. the whole of the command structure not including Moonfish) was quite surprised. The leather-bound villain, an original member of the true League, had only been free out of Tartarus for about a week until he was captured again by the heroes. Dabi, the leader of the new LoV, along with his advisor Kurogiri (another original true League member who recently escaped from Tartarus), as well as Dabi's second and third in command Spinner and Toga (respectively) were now busy doing damage control.

This left Mr. Compress, Twice, Muscular (same deal as Moonfish and Kurogiri) and Skeptic (an MLA/PLF member that the League scooped up) behind to keep an eye on the fort until they all got back. "I told Dabi sending that deranged bastard to kill the giant hero lady was stupid," Muscular remarked, "I said that I should have done it instead. But no, instead he had Moonfish go out and do it. And where did it lead?" Holding his hands up, Muscular said, "It led to some red-haired little twat from U.A. and his nerdy little girlfriend recapturing one of the enforcers here in the League!"

"In Dabi's defense," Mr. Compress remarked, "He and the others had a point on how you'd have gotten yourself caught a hell of a lot sooner." The dapperly dressed villain crossed his arms over his chest. "I mean really, Muscular. You have a bit of an issue in maintaining a firm grasp over your near-insatiable bloodlust."

It was clear that Muscular was close to flying off the handle at Mr. Compress, but before anything could come to blows, Skeptic spoke up with an idea that he hoped would work to get things to settle back down. "Hey, maybe there are a few jobs from the League's mysterious benefactor waiting in the job que," the former MLA member offered, "Why don't we check the desk drawer where Dabi keeps the files on the jobs we haven't done yet."

Mr. Compress, Twice and Muscular all had no idea which drawer Dabi kept the files in, but Skeptic did, so he went over and opened the drawer, pulling out three files, each containing the only available jobs from the mysterious benefactor that hadn't been done yet. "Let's see what we here," Skeptic said as he proceeded to over the files one at a time, "Infiltrate Uwabami's cosmetics company and undermine it to make it more susceptible to being bought out by others, intimidate Hokaro Uraraka and his construction company into closing up permanently, and track down and kill Sa-"

"A killing job!" Muscular practically exclaimed in clear amusement, snatching the appropriate file out of Skeptic's hands and looking it over. "…Ha! This one is a piece of cake!" Muscular proclaimed, "All that has to be done is find and kill some stupid kid!"

"Umm, Muscular," Mr. Compress began, a hint of hesitation in his tone as he gestured to the murderous villain, "Dabi said that we're supposed to wait on doing that job for-"

Muscular stopped listening the moment that Mr. Compress began talking to him. Instead, he made a beeline for the door, holding up the file that he snatched from Skeptic. "Don't worry, I'll kill the brat here and we'll be able to collect on the payment offered for said brat's head." Giving off a self-amused scoff, Muscular remarked, "Besides, do you know how tough I am? Heh, name one person who can stop me."

* * *

A party representing the Hero Public Safety Commission stood on a private runway at an airport as they watched a private passenger plane land on the runway. The plane, when it came to a stop, opened the one door on the side facing the HPSC party. Some government officials, all dressed for the job, came out first. The government officials went down the staircase that was set up in front of the open door, allowing them to get down safely.

"(I'm Koharu Gunga, the president of the Hero Public Safety Commission)," Koharu greeted in English as she, along with her chief advisor Loukar Riaoh, as well as HPSC employee Yokumiru Mera, walked from the HPSC group and greeted the three government officials, two African American men and one Native American woman. The lead government official, the one out of the two African American men who was bald, accepted the handshake Koharu offered.

"(Thanks for having representatives from the United States' agency of managing quirked persons visit you here in Japan,)" the bald man replied in English, "(The threats that can be posed by the more dangerous quirked criminals should not be left alone to be handled by just one nation. We can set an example of allied countries lending one another aid in handing more notable cases of villainy that try to pop up.)"

Koharu nodded in agreement to the bald black man. "(I suspect that when there's a problem with quirked villains in the States that the Americans find they have trouble with, you'll be quick to consider calling in the help of a Japanese pro hero, just like how you brought an American hero here to Japan to help us clean up the mess that is the prison break out of Tartarus?)"

"(Indeed,)" the Native American woman replied with an agreeing nod. At the moment, the Native American woman nodded, three more persons stepped off of the plane. The first two were Aggro Ace and his protégé Lincoln Loud, who were previously in Japan during the villain siege that swamped the whole of the city. Both guys were already fully decked out in their respective hero outfits, which included all of their respective weapons.

The third person to leave the plane was Leni, the older sister of Lincoln and the girlfriend of Aggro. The fashionable Loud sister looked around excitedly, eager to see what traveling to a foreign country had to offer her. "(This is, like, totes exciting, guys,)" Leni remarked as she turned her head back and forth, trying to see anything and everything that was different from the United States than what Japan had. "(Thanks again for bringing me along, Aggro!)"

The Samurai Hero let off an amused, mildly helpless chuckle. "(…Well you did say that you always wanted to visit a foreign country, Leni-chan. I hope you don't mind that it's Japan that I took you to, and only because I was coming here myself for a job that was extended to me by the Japanese government.)"

After the three of them got off the staircase, they made their way over to the American government officials and greeted the HPSC party. "I take it that you're the party representing the Hero Public Safety Commission?" Aggro asked Koharu's party, surprising them all because he was speaking in perfect Japanese. Yokumiru noticed it that, while Aggro spoke in Japanese, Lincoln spoke to the rest of the American party in English, telling them all what Aggro had just said to the HPSC party.

"Umm, yes," Koharu replied, still a bit surprised that one of the Americans spoke Japanese as easily as a native born speaker. What's more is that Aggro looked a lot like a native born resident of the land of the rising sun; but then again, she was informed that the Samurai Hero was half-Japanese, and it was the half of his heritage that was strongly shown in his person. Koharu held her hand out to Aggro, offering a handshake. Aggro accepted it.

Pointing to Lincoln, Yokumiru gave Aggro a curious look and said, "Who's this kid that you brought with you, and why was he speaking English to the others just now?" Giving off a knowing sigh, as if he were expecting this at some point, Aggro proceeded to explain that Lincoln was serving as a translator for the non-Japanese speakers in the American party, which meant all of them aside from Aggro himself and Lincoln.

"(Well now that we got that out of the way,)" the bald black man said in English, "(I suppose we ought to get down to business.)" Koharu nodded in agreement, and she and the rest of the HPSC party proceeded to lead the American party over to the headquarters of the HPSC, in order to go over the matters of business that are facing the pro hero society of Japan.

* * *

"(This man, who we have identified only as Daruma,)" Koharu said to the American government officials, Aggro and Lincoln while showing them a picture of All for One's personal doctor friend, "(Is the last connection to All for One, the worst villain in the history of Japan. Mr. Daruma here is still on the loose, but we have multiple leads confirming were we can track him down and get ahold of him. Once he's captured and we uncover all of his dirty works, the last of All for One's influence in our country will have been cleaned up for good.)"

The American government officials all nodded in understanding, seeing how so powerful a man of evil intent like that can be. Once every last bit of All for One's influence has been cleaned up, that will bring Japan one step closer to achieving a peace that they hadn't quite known since the retirement of All Might, the greatest hero that Japan had ever known. Given that Japan and the United States are close allies, it made sense that the USA would be willing to lend aid to Japan to help them clean up shop.

Pulling out another file, originally Japanese but had recently been translated into English, Koharu handed them to the American government officials. "(Recently, a total of sixty-eight villains had escaped from Tartarus,)" Koharu began to explain, "(Most of the escaped villains are nothing more than fodder forces that have no use beyond working for more powerful villains. However, four of the escaped villains are very dangerous threats. If at all possible, we of the Hero Public Safety Commission would like Sengoku's help in dealing with those four villains, in addition to the help he is already set to give in tracking down Daruma.)"

"(It's actually just three notable villains that we need Sengoku's help with now,)" Loukar clarified to the Americans, "(Recently, one of the four notable villains, Moonfish, was defeated by two students from U.A. High School. The villain was apprehended by police and pro heroes less than an hour later.)"

Koharu, with a look of sudden realization on her face, remarked, "(Oh yeah! Two of the students over at Nezu's school made the news because they confronted and defeated Moonfish!)" At the president's order, Yokumiru pulled up a news article that detailed all of the incident where the leather-bound villain was defeated and re-captured. Yokumiru was able to pull it up on the big smartboard, so that the Americans can all see it.

"(Sorry that it's in Japanese,)" Koharu apologized, "(But if you want, I can have some guys translate it for-)"

"I recognize that boy in the article," Aggro spoke up suddenly, speaking in Japanese as he looked at the blown-up article on the big smartboard. "…Yeah, that's Eijiro Kirishima," the Samurai Hero went on, "He's one of ten U.A. students who was killed in the villain siege on the city that interrupted the team battle event Royal Woods High came to Japan to have against U.A. After the fighting was over, my sisters, Bobby and I resurrected all of the slain U.A. students with our respective resurrection moves from our Sacred Heritage quirks." Aggro had a mild but notable hint of amusement on his face. "…I was the one who resurrected Kirishima."

The members of the HPSC all looked at Aggro, surprised that he was able to recognize one of the heroes-in-training that was praised for heroism in the article. Aggro turned to look at Koharu, gave her a curious look. "I can guess that news such as the prison break is supposed to be kept as secret as possible, but since one of the notable villains that broke out was seen clearly in the middle of the day, I guess word broke about the prison break anyway. I don't suppose that you know what the extent of the damage is, do you?"

Koharu let out a resigned sigh. "…A bunch of students over at U.A. know the full extent of all of the prisoners that broke out of Tartarus. Many of them are freaking out, especially this one girl in Shouta Aizawa's homeroom class, Ochaco Uraraka."

"…Those names are familiar to me," Aggro remarked, a look of consideration on his face, "Yes, Aizawa had his class over in Royal Woods a while ago on some international field trip, and a pair of assassins tried to target his student Uraraka. I assisted Aizawa, along with his fellow U.A. teacher Hizashi, and two class 1-A students Yaoyorozu and Shoji, in tracking down someone who provided useful information about the killers."

The president of the commission nodded in agreement. "Yes. Among the bulk of the fodder forces that escaped from Tartarus, about half of them are quirked mercenaries that are employed by the same mysterious person who employed the two assassins that tried to murder Aizawa's student Uraraka. But those fodder villains, as well as the fodder villains that came from the USJ attack incident, are not your concern, Sengoku."

At Koharu's instructions, Yokumiru went over and gave Aggro three files. "These contain what info we have on the notable villains that escaped from Tartarus and remain at large," Koharu said, "We also have one on Moonfish, but there's no need to give that one to you due to the fact that Aizawa's student Kirishima and Sekijiro's student Komori had defeated and recaptured that villain for us."

Aggro went over the files that were given to him. They were all in Japanese, so when the black American government official that was not bald (he had very short hair that felt almost like fuzz if you rubbed your hand over it) asked why Aggro let out an interested gasp, the Samurai hero turned to face him. "(This one villain, Stain. His quirk is functionally very similar, if not the very same, to the quirk that Lincoln-kun has.)"

Looking to Koharu, Aggro asked how they would like him to help recapture the notable escaped villains. "Here's…" Koharu said, stopping short to let out a resigned sigh. "…Here's the thing. Due to the sheer level of threat that each one of those three villains on their own represents to society here in Japan, you're not exactly _required_ to simply defeat them when you encounter them. If you can knock them out for recapture, then that's great. But if you find that recapture may be too much when you find one of those three, you have the okay from both the HPSC and the Japanese government to use lethal force on them."

Aggro arched a wry eyebrow at Koharu, before turning his attention to look at the three files that were given to him. "…Stain, Kurogiri, Muscular…" Looking back up at Koharu, Aggro said, "So you're telling me that, if I see no other alternative when I confront any of them, it's okay for me to kill them." Koharu nodded in confirmation, then went into detail about a payment plan that was going to be set up to reward Aggro for his services, both in apprehending the three notable villains that escaped from Tartarus that are still at large, as well as the tracking down and capture of All for One's doctor friend, Daruma.

At the end of the meeting, Aggro informed the American government officials that he had an idea on someplace he wanted to check out first. The government officials, trusting in what the Samurai Hero had in mind, gave him the okay to take off, but not before giving him the address of the hotel that their party was staying at while they were visiting Japan.

* * *

On a street in a neighborhood somewhere in the city, a few first year girls in U.A.'s hero course were walking along as a group. The group of girls consisted of Uraraka, Tsuyu, Eunice and Kinoko. "Why are we on this street again?" the mushroom girl asked, "This is the same street where Eijiro and I went on that triple date along with two boys in his class and Pony and Reiko. We went to that fancy Italian restaurant that's located on this street."

"We're here to pick up my little brother," Tsuyu explained, "He's over at-"

"AAAAHHHHH!"

The four girls all stopped short when they turned around and saw what was going on; a woman dressed like she worked at a center that looked after kids was being lifted up off of the ground by the escaped villain Muscular. The murderous villain held the woman up by the front of her shirt, keeping her aloft with only his left hand raised up high. The woman struggled to get out of that grasp, but Muscular was too strong for that.

The murderous villain gave the struggling woman a sneering grin that bordered on being totally psychotic. "Look here, lady," Muscular said, "You clearly look like you work at the place that has the kid I'm trying to find, so you better spill what I-"

The villain was cut off when he was hit by a trash can that was thrown at him rather hard. He was then struck with a powerful telekinetic blast. This distracted Muscular, making him lose his grip on the woman he held hostage and allowing her to go free. Seeing the four female heroes-in-training, who were clearly the ones that attacked Muscular just now and made him let go of her, the woman quickly ran to take cover behind them.

"You're that villain from the attack on the training camp," Uraraka said as she pointed an accusing finger at Muscular, "The one who tried to kill Kota and beat Izuku up terribly before he ultimately defeated you."

Muscular arched a wry eyebrow as he looked at Uraraka and the other girls. Suddenly, a smirk formed on his lips. "…Heh, I'm already on my way to kill some kid at the nearby center, but I think that I'll get in a bit of a warm-up by killing all four of-"

"Kitsune's Breath!"

Muscular was cut off by the shout of that technique being called, then suddenly he was hit in the back by a powerful stream of golden flames. The murderous villain was knocked to the side, temporarily stunned. Uraraka, Tsuyu, Kinoko and Eunice all looked over and saw who it was that had sent Muscular reeling; to their surprise, it was Aggro Ace, one of the members of the Royal Woods High team that had visited Japan before with the aim to have a team battle event against whatever team U.A. threw together to face them.

The Samurai Hero already had his fully-enveloping cloak of golden flames up when he arrived on the scene and attacked Muscular. He walked towards where Muscular was picking himself up off of the ground. Aggro pointed his bokken that he had out, this one being Morning Sun, at the escaped notable villain. "I will warn you of this only once, Muscular," Aggro said coolly, his tone sending shivers down the spines of the girls, "I actually have the legal okay to _kill you_, and I will make use of it if you do not yield or if you try anything funny. Other pro heroes and some police are on their way as we speak to help apprehend you if you choose to live."

Muscular did not like how Aggro was talking to him at all. Sneering with rage, he ran forward, the ground vibrating with each stomp, and threw a staggering slugging punch right at Aggro. The Samurai Hero, arching a wry eyebrow, did not even flinch, and for all of Muscular's bluster, his assault did nothing as it was held at bay easily by Aggro's protective cloak of golden flames. The fire did not even so much as waiver under Muscular's heavy assault. Muscular backed off a bit, more surprised and confused that his attack did nothing more than anything else.

"…Yeah, that's not going to work on me," Aggro retorted dryly, and that started off a flurry of powerful blows from the raging hulking monster that was Muscular, who amped up his muscles as much as he could. Regardless, the assault had no effect, and Aggro was simply standing there, seeming like he was going to let Muscular tire himself out in this fashion to make things easier for the pro heroes and police that were set to arrive.

Eventually, Muscular got it through his thick skull that he wasn't going to win here against this golden fire bastard. Looking around, Muscular spotted the four female heroes-in-training from earlier. "Maybe you'll be more agreeable to letting me kill you if I kill a few of those girls over there first!" Muscular exclaimed at Aggro before turning around in full and making a charging run right for Uraraka and the other girls, eliciting frightened yells out of all four; Eunice even covered her ears with her hands and dropped into a crouching fetal position.

Aggro, his gaze narrowing viciously, took aim at Muscular, pointing his left hand's palm at the back of the rampaging villain. "Flames of Rebuke!" A blast of golden fire, the golden coloration so deeply concentrated that the attack seemed to be made of actual solid gold, flew from Aggro's hand and right at Muscular, striking him right in the back and making a pillar of golden flames erupt around him, engulfing him completely. Muscular cried out in pain as the attack ravaged him so painfully, eventually all within him burst.

Blood erupted out of his mouth, oozed out of both nostrils and from both ears, and splotches on both the front and back of his pants showed that blood also erupted out of both his sphincter and his urethra. After the golden flames were done ravaging Muscular, they dissipated, allowing the murderous villains to fall lifelessly to his knees before he fell over onto the asphalt of the street, laying eerily still in a slightly growing pool of his own blood. The deed done, Aggro willed his cloak of golden flames to recede, the cloak dissipating as he returned Morning Sun to the cloth carrying case that he wore over his back.

The girls from U.A. were about to run over to Aggro, but they stopped when they saw him go to Muscular's body. Curiously, they saw Aggro move to recover a single strap backpack that was on the late villain's person. "What are you doing kero?" Tsuyu asked as she and the girls went over to the Samurai Hero.

"There might be evidence in this bag that could give the pro heroes and police here an idea as to what this guy was up to," Aggro explained without looking up, "Since I'm on the case to help them, whatever evidence I recover can be used in the courts during the trial." Aggro removed the backpack that Muscular had, then unzipped it. Inside was nothing but a pair of leather gloves, a length of rope, a folded-up city map, and the one thing that actually caught Aggro's attention; a vanilla folder that looked to contain some papers.

Right away, Aggro took up the file and opened it, going through the contents. As Aggro skimmed the file, his eyes widening with shock and disgust as he read on, the woman that the girls had rescued came over. "Umm, excuse me, sir," the woman began, "But is there anything in that file right there that's the cause for how you look offended?"

Nodding in confirmation, Aggro said, "Yeah. This file contains details on an assassination hit that some bastard had ordered out on some kid named Samidare Asui."

"WHAT?!" Tsuyu exclaimed at the top of her lungs, surprising Aggro and making him turn to look at her. Pointing to the file that Aggro held, Tsuyu asked while tears were starting to well up in the corners of her eyes, "Are you being serious? This that really an assassination contract that's out for my little brother kero?"

"Your little brother…" Aggro remarked, a bit surprised by the revelation that he just saw. Gently shaking his head, Aggro addressed Tsuyu and the rest of the girls. "I think that it would be best if the lot of you remained here in order to give details to the pro heroes and police that are set to arrive. I was hoping to also present to them a live and captured villain, but his act in turning to face you while declaring his intent to kill forced my hand." The girls all nodded in agreement to Aggro, and waited around with him until the police and pro heroes showed up.

* * *

The police and pro heroes came not long after, and Aggro, while explaining to the officers and pros about how he had to use lethal force on Muscular as he gave them contact info to reach the guys in the HPSC that had commissioned him to come to Japan to help out, showed some of the pro heroes that came the file he recovered from Muscular's corpse. The pros, conveniently, included Aizawa and Hizashi, who Aggro had worked with before when class 1-A came over to Royal Woods on an international field trip.

"…That's Tsuyu's little brother, alright," Aizawa confirmed as he let out a resigned sigh, "So now we know that the mysterious person that employs both a personal mercenary force and hires the League of Villains to do dirty work for him wants to see Tsuyu's younger brother dead, and even offered a generous payout for the deed."

"But the question is why this mysterious benefactor fellow wants to see a ten-year-old autistic boy hang," Aggro remarked, "I mean, what did this Samidare kid even do to even pop up on this mysterious benefactor fellow's radar?"

Aizawa crossed his arms over his chest, let out a troubled sigh. "That's what we'd like to know. But regardless, I ought to thank you for saving students from U.A." Gesturing to Aggro, Aizawa went on, "Hizashi, Sekijiro and I also clued in all fifty-three of the students you and your classmates would have fought at the team battle event that you would be coming here to Japan to help out with all of the trouble that we got. We know because Hizashi and I had discussed the matter with Loukar from the HPSC, as well as Detective Naomasa."

The Samurai Hero nodded in understanding, turned his head to look over where Uraraka, Tsuyu, Kinoko and Eunice were standing; while everything was going on, the girls had since picked up Tsuyu's little brother Samidare. Additionally, the pro heroes Ryukyu and Fat Gum were both standing close by the girls and Samidare. The sole Asui brother, for his part, had his face buried in his older sister's stomach as he wrapped his arms around her and cried rather hard.

Aggro turned back to look at Aizawa and Hizashi. "The kid is rattled, so it's best if he's allowed to go home and cool off," Hizashi remarked, "Or rather, I would say that if it wasn't for the fact that the big man that is hiding behind the scenes wants him dead." Crossing his arms over his chest, Hizashi remarked, "Until the coast is clear, I suggest that we keep him under protected surveillance over at U.A."

Aggro nodded in agreement to what the cockatiel-haired hero said. "That would normally be a good idea, Present Mic, but you need to remember that the boy is autistic. Having him move from the home he's always known to a completely different location for an unknown length of time will not be met all that agreeably."

"Sengoku's got a point," Aizawa remarked, "We'll simply have to meet with the Asuis, tell them what all is going down, and arrange to have them monitored by pro heroes until we stop the dark mystery bastard." The underground hero pounded a fist into his hand, a sign that he was letting off some frustration. "It's bad enough that mysterious benefactor guy had tried to have one of my students murdered twice. But now he's targeting the family of another one of my students? Not to mention all of whatever else he's done."

"We'll get to the bottom of this, Sho," Hizashi replied in a reassuring tone, patting his co-worker on the back gently. Aggro, as he regarded Aizawa, gave him a reassuring nod. Aizawa, although still very frustrated with what all his students have gone through, felt a little relieved that there was just as much help ready to pitch in to fend off the forces that threaten to assail the innocent heroes-in-training.

Whatever those forces may be.

* * *

"Muscular took **what** file again?" Dabi said, his voice barely below loud.

Mr. Compress, as he and what was left of the new League of Villains' command structure had a meeting to discuss how Muscular had gotten himself killed, informed Dabi about how the late murderous villain had snatched up the file of a job in the job que that was lined up by the LoV's mysterious benefactor that detailed how the mysterious man wanted Samidare Asui to be killed. It was a job that was in the job que for the longest time, well since before the PLF's ultimately failed attempt to lay siege to the city.

The job was originally given to Dabi, Spinner and Toga to do a long time ago, but none of them wanted to do it. They were able to avoid having to actually take the job thanks to both Giran and Mr. Compress sympathizing with them and sending word to the mysterious benefactor that the three villains simply weren't free to take up the job. As such, it had remained in the job que for so long, that the folder didn't take long to start collecting dust.

And with Dabi ending up as the big head honcho of the LoV now, there was no way the Samidare job would have ever been taken care of. As a rule of thumb, Dabi, as well as both Spinner and Toga, drew lines at killing kids. But the sole Asui boy in particular was one that the three of them did not want to harm. Although the three of them wouldn't admit it, Dabi, Spinner and Toga were all actually rather fond of Samidare, as well as his little sister Satsuki. The two younger Asui siblings had come to see the three villains as friends, even though they only had the one encounter, and to be frank, the three villains actually returned the feelings.

The blue-flame villain, for that reason, was understandably pisses that Muscular took the job to kill the sole Asui boy. Dabi was actually secretly grateful to the hero that killed that loose handle member of the League, as Muscular clearly couldn't be trusted, especially since he decided to take the job that Dabi didn't want anyone to take ever. But to the League's bad luck, that very file was on Muscular's person when he was killed, and now it was most likely evidence in the hands of the police and pro heroes.

Dabi rubbed his face in exasperation, annoyed as all hell. "Muscular, you son of a bitch…"

END, CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Author's notes;

Well, there you have it; the mystery job that the mysterious benefactor wanted done, the job that Dabi and friends didn't want to do, was a hit called out on Samidare. Although there is danger in that, the pro heroes and police now know, so they can take steps to keep the sole Asui boy safe. Additionally, the foreign help that the HPSC called in from the United States had arrived, and he will be getting to work in helping to take care of the notable Tartarus escapees, as well as lend aid when All for One's good doctor friend is finally found. The main forces of villainy that are still in Japan are slowly being rounded up, but they won't go down without getting in at least a few good swings, the mysterious benefactor most of all.

But that's not here or there. For now, the main plot of this arc is going to have to take a bit of a back seat, as the next three chapters are going to be dedicated to a mini-arc that I've been wanting to do for the longest time. This mini-arc will have a lot of impact on the tone for the rest of the story as a whole, and may even extend influence to future works.

The mini-arc will also be about Mineta. Huh, who would have ever guessed it?


	54. Chapter 54

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter fifty-four: The punishment of Mineta

The girls of class 1-A and class 1-B, along with Nejire of the Big Three, were having a meeting of serious importance over in the girls-only dorm building that had been set up for them. There were, however, two girls that were absent, those being Eunice and Kinoko.

"Alright, alright," Nejire said as she banged a shoe at her spot at the meeting table, getting all of the girls to turn to focus on her, "Now that all of us are here, let's review what all else we got on our plate before we get to the subject at hand. But before that, does anyone know why Eunice and Kinoko didn't show up to the meeting? Both of them will be in the dark because they missed the meeting, unless one of us remembers to fill them in on what went down later."

Uraraka raised her right hand, getting Nejire to call on her. "Actually, I was told by Tenya that Eunice needed to do some sort of therapy thing, and she'll be out for a few days because of it. I could also tell that Tenya is concerned about her well-being, though."

The sole girl of the Big Three nodded, understanding what her junior was talking about. "Okay then, but what about Kinoko?"

"Kinoko had some issues with her asthma, so she needs to recover in the infirmary here on campus," Itsuka remarked, a hint of mild worry in her tone. Putting on a brave smile, the rep for class 1-B added, "But Kinoko will be fine, and when I visited her earlier, I saw that Kirishima was already there checking on her."

"Kinoko has asthma?" Setsuna remarked, sounding more surprised than anything.

Itsuka nodded once in the affirmative. "Why else do you think she takes care to not inhale any of her mushroom spores that her quirk makes?"

"Well I am glad to see that the missing girls are not in any immediate danger," Nejire remarked, "Let's be sure to see the both of them as soon as we can, alright ladies?" A chorus of affirmative cheers from the rest of the girls at the meeting made it clear that they would follow their sempai on this matter. "Anyway, to cover a personal matter for someone," Nejire went on. Turning to look at Tsuyu, Nejire said, "Tsuyu, girl, you said something about how your little brother might be in some sort of trouble?"

Gently shaking her head, Tsuyu said, "Samidare's not in trouble, he's in danger kero." The frog-like girl shuddered a bit, as if what concerned her shook her to her core. "…I recently found out that the same big bad guy that wants Uraraka dead now also wants to kill Samidare."

"BLASPHEMY!" Mina exclaimed furiously, standing up from her seat as she slammed her spot at the meeting table with her hands, "Like fucking hell I'll let anything happen to that adorable little treasure! I'll find the fucker making threats to Samidare and make him ever regret the day that he decided to get on my shitlist!"

A lot of the other girls at the meeting all agreed that one of the absolute last things that any of them wanted was to see any harm come to the sole Asui boy. "Luckily," Tsuyu went on, "The senseis are working out a plan to make sure there's appropriate security until the man that runs both the mercenary force and provided funding to the League of Villains is caught. Even better, that Aggro Ace guy who came back to Japan from the United States is going to help make sure an eye is kept on Samidare."

"Aggro Ace?" Itsuka said, a look of surprise on her face, "You mean that gold fire quirk guy?"

Tsuyu nodded a few times in confirmation, as did Uraraka as she also saw Aggro in action a short while ago. "From what the senseis told me and Uraraka on the matter, Aggro was called in to help handle both the mass villain escape from Tartarus and to help clean up the last of the influence of All Might's big bad nemesis," Tsuyu noted, "Apparently all that has to be done to end the presence of All Might's nemesis's will is to find some doctor guy called Daruma and capture him kero."

Nejire wore a look of consideration on her face as she thought about what Tsuyu had just said. "Hmm," the sole girl of the Big Three hummed, "Aggro Ace is one of those Sacred Heritage quirk users. If I recall correctly from what Mirio told me on the matter, Aggro is also the same guy who, during 1-A's field trip to the United States, single-handedly defeated Izuku, Bakugo, Todoroki, Tenya, Tokoyami, Kirishima and Kaminari." Turning her gaze from the table's surface to Tsuyu, Nejire asked, "Right?"

The frog-like girl nodded in confirmation. "It's true, he beat up all seven of them. But that only happened because Aggro was led into doing it because of _him_."

The other girls at the meeting all nodded in understanding to Tsuyu. "Yes, it only happened because of that little pervert's actions," Kyoka remarked, a hint of annoyed, strained bitterness in her tone, "Because of Mineta being unable to keep it in his pants, Aggro was ultimately led into attacking and putting all of those boys in the hospital."

The other girls were all in agreement with Kyoka's sentiment on the issue that was the infamous pervert of class 1-A, Minoru Mineta. At one point, all of the original girls in class 1-A, as well as all seven of the girls in class 1-B, had been on the receiving end of at least one bit of 'flirting' from Mineta. He had also tried to make moves on Habuko and Hatsume when they were added, but refrained from Eunice and Sakaki because, according to Mineta, Eunice's autism made her weird, and Sakaki being fat made her unappealing.

The fact that Mineta, the blatant pervert he was, had rejected Sakaki on the basis of her weight really said something.

Of course, Mineta's actions were far from being excused. The girls all always made sure to give the short-statured teen a scolding whenever he acted up. In fact, Mineta's fellow boys also got in on disciplining their perverted classmate, especially boys who were in relationships with some of the 1-A and 1-B girls. There was one occasion where, when Mineta was making a remark about Reiko's mildly full lips and how they'd be great for smooching, the ghost girl whipped out her phone and sent a text to Todoroki.

The two-toned boy, just a few seconds later, came running straight up to Mineta and kicked him in his holy land so hard, he actually sent Mineta flying clear to the far other side of the cafeteria. Strangely enough, Todoroki did not get into any trouble for that, with some of the girls under the impression that it's due to how the teachers were just simply that impressed with how great of a distance Todoroki got with his kick that sent Mineta flying, soaring over the heads of everyone else in the cafeteria like an early dream of mankind. There was even a rumor (started by Mina, not that the others knew) that Aizawa-sensei gave Todoroki extra credit for that stunt. But that's just hearsay.

"Yes, yes, Mineta is always punished whenever he acts like a lewd prick," Kyoka remarked, "But even after he's punished, he's right back at it again as soon as his balls are recovered from the latest kick that they suffered."

"Indeed, and that is why we are here," Nejire said, her eyes closed as she rested her chin on her fingers, which were locked together as she rested her elbows on the table. The third year girl then opened her eyes, as if for dramatic effect, as she looked at the other girls. "We are here to open discussions on how to get Minoru Mineta out of U.A."

The other girls all cheered in agreement with the 'big sister' of their dorm building. As she looked over all of the girls sitting at the table with her, Nejire said with a surprising hint of business-like seriousness, "Now then, does anyone have any ideas here on what we can do to get rid of that perverted little gremlin?"

Right away, a number of hands shot up, and Nejire decided to pick on the invisible hand of Hagakure. "Oh, I got it! Everyone was there when the senseis told us about how Aggro came here to help out, right? And how Aggro also brought that protégé of his and the kid's older sister, with said older sister just so happening to be Aggro's girlfriend? Well, what if we can convince Mineta to grab Aggro's girlfriend's butt again, and this time make sure all of the other boys are safely hidden away so Mineta won't have a scapegoat?"

"A few things, Hagakure," Kyoka remarked, "One, that is not very likely to work since Mineta knows full well that Aggro will kill him if he touches Leni's butt. Two, even if we do somehow trick Mineta into grabbing Leni's butt and Aggro proceeds to murderously chase Mineta, all of the guys know now steer clear of Aggro's pursuit and let him pass as they all know of what Aggro did when the seven guys unknowingly held him up that one time, so there's no need to hide any of the boys away. Hell, some of the boys, knowing them, may even offer to _help_ Aggro chase Mineta down in that case."

Holding up three fingers, the rock music lover finished by saying, "And three, this being the most important, this plan of yours, if we successfully get it working, will most likely _actually_ result in Aggro killing Mineta. We want the little pervert out of U.A. and out of our lives, not put six feet under by some pissed-off dude with a legendary quirk."

"What if we just write up an entire list of all of Mineta's offences," Yaoyorozu began to suggest, with all of the other girls at the meeting turning to face her, "Present it to the school staff, and make an impassioned speech on why we feel that Mineta has long since worn out whatever right he had to be in U.A. in the first place? I mean, the main reason why the school had to shell out to build this girls-only dorm building for us was so that they could get us away from Mineta outside of school hours. Wouldn't it have been a lot more cost effective to just simply kick Mineta out of U.A. as a consequence of his actions, rather than build this dorm building to get us away from him outside of school hours and continue to allow Mineta to continue doing just about all of his thinking with only his penis?"

Yaoyorozu was cut off when she heard a *click* sound, then turned to face the direction the sound came from, and saw Mina looking at her phone with a shit-eating grin. "Girls, I just got a recording of Yaoyorozu saying the word penis!" the pink-skinned girl exclaimed in very clear amusement, "I have it saved right next to the file I got of Tenya saying the word scrotum! I can make one hell of a hilarious ringtone out of mixing the two recordings!"

"Girls, we need to get back on track," Nejire said, getting all of the girls to look back at her, although Mina, Setsuna and Hatsume were all still giggling to themselves over how funny they found Mina's plan with the sound clips to be. "Now then, ladies," the third year girl began, "This is what I have in mind for our first plan…"

* * *

The following morning, the unknowing boys of the 1-A and 1-B classes were all meeting Aizawa, Hizashi and Sekijiro over outside of Gym Gamma. "Now then, boys," Aizawa began as he addressed the 1-A and 1-B boys, "Hizashi, Sekijiro and I gathered the lot of you all here since we need to tell you something very important."

"THIS IS THE TALE!" Hizashi yelled, clearly sounding like he was singing, "OF CAPTAIN JACK SPAR-"

After Sekijiro cut Hizashi off by smacking him in the back of the head and after Aizawa thanked Sekijiro for doing that, the underground hero said, "If…we can get down to business here, we need to go over with you boys on how Sengoku, while he and his party are here in Japan to help with cleaning up some villainous threats, will occasionally be seen in and around U.A. This is due to how often those among you seem to be a magnet for the very dangers that Sengoku was brought over from the United States to help handle."

"Wait, that gold fire samurai guy will be here occasionally?" Akuma asked, raising a hand.

Nodding in confirmation, Aizawa said, "There is nothing to worry about in regards to this, as it's being done for security reasons."

Izuku raised a nervous hand, and after he was called on he asked, "Aizawa-sensei, I got it from Uraraka and Tsuyu that they saw Sengoku straight up kill the villain Muscular, then informed them that he had the legal backing to do so."

Once more, Aizawa gave a confirming nod. "Yes, Midoriya. Both the HPSC and the Japanese government has granted Sengoku permission to use lethal force on all of the notable villains that had escaped from Tartarus. This only covers four of the escaped prisoners, but Sengoku already killed one, and another was defeated and recaptured by Kirishima and Komori before Sengoku even got here. There's only two villains left that he has what's basically kill-on-sight orders for."

"The main governing bodies in Japan actually gave Sengoku the okay to kill villains?" Tenya asked with a mildly concerned hint in his tone as he raised a hand.

"The four specific villains were deemed that dangerous, yes," Sekijiro explained. As he then went on to clarify that the main bulk of the escaped villains weren't deemed that dangerous enough and that other pros will handle rounding all of them up, a certain kind of ringtone from someone's phone went off; it was a ringtone of Mineta's voice, but the words were clearly sounding like they were all said in different lines, but were cut from said lines and stringed into a new sentence that is far and away from the originals.

"Aizawa-sensei's Penis Is smaller than My pinky Nail!" the voice of Mineta said as it came from Mineta's phone as a ringtone. Mineta instantly looked freaked out as he struggled to get his phone out and shut it off, all the while loudly proclaiming he had absolutely no idea how that recording even got played from his phone.

All of the other boys, as well as Hizashi, all laughed at Mineta as he embarrassingly tried to say how he had no idea how all of that happened. Aizawa himself, with a confused and stunned look on his face, merely pointed at Mineta and told him that he had afterschool detention for that day, further embarrassing Mineta and making the other boys, and Hizashi, laugh more at him. Even the normally respectful boys, like Izuku and Tenya, were pointing and laughing at Mineta, and even Dark Shadow came out of Tokoyami just to join in on pointing and laughing at Mineta with the other guys in its host's class.

Over where she hid in a nearby bush with Mina, Setsuna and Hatsume, Nejire snapped her fingers while saying, "Well damn. Looks like plan A to get Mineta out of U.A. turned out to be a complete and total bust."

The three first year girls with their sempai turned to look at her, with Mina saying, "I did the best I could with the sound clip program on my phone. And you won't believe how tough it was for me to silently steal Mineta's phone, send the sound clip I created to Mineta's phone, set that clip up on Mineta's phone as his ring tone, then put Mineta's phone back where I found it."

Nejire let out a resigned sigh, gently shaking her head in disappointment that the first plan had failed to result in more than an afterschool detention for Mineta. "…Well girls, it looks like we have to go on to plan B."

* * *

The following day, Izuku, along with Bakugo, Todoroki, Tenya, Sero, Kirishima, Kaminari and Mineta were all walking in one of the hallways in the main building for U.A. "So, umm, yeah," Sero remarked to the other guys, his expression a mix of mildly surprised, mildly unsure and just plain confused, "From what I can tell, Mina is apparently trying to lay dibs on me."

Surprisingly, Bakugo gave Sero a thumbs-up. "Well about damn time you got with a girl, Sero. I was actually beginning to wonder when it would happen for you, given you're the last guy in the squad to strike it up." The ashy-haired boy gave a gentle shake of his head before saying, "I just hope you're prepared for Pinky. I mean, she's a bit…out there sometimes. That girl is a bag full of cats sometimes."

"You should have seen what all I saw her get up to when the two of us were still back in middle school together," Kirishima remarked, "Hell, part of the reason why she was able to pass all of her final middle school exams is because-"

Kirishima was cut off when he and the other boys heard a girl call out to them. They all turned their attention in the appropriate direction and as such, they saw Mina, Kyoka, Uraraka, Pony and Reiko come running up to meet them. It had been Mina who called out to the boys. "What are you boys up to?" the pink-skinned girl asked, a look of curiosity on her face.

Gesturing to his old friend from middle school, Kirishima explained, "Oh, I was about to tell them about how you managed to pass all of your final middle school exams and graduate so that you'd be able to enroll here at U.A." The rest of the guys in the party all nodded to show that what the crimson-haired boy said was accurate.

Mina, with a bit of an amused smile, let out a whistle. "Hoo boy, yeah that was one of the finer pieces of my work. And the principal of that school still owes me one-hundred and seventy-five thousand yen."

Right away, Tenya gave his somewhat eccentric female classmate a curious, mildly firm glare. "I have no idea what manner of deceit you pulled off in middle school, but I hope that you keep in mind that we're students of U.A. now, so any manner of indecent behavior-"

…

In the hallway around the corner, Aizawa was walking and talking with Hizashi and Sekijiro. "So as I was saying," Aizawa remarked to his co-workers as they walked, "I knew that Emi was going to be all excited since the two of us are engaged now. But I didn't expect her to take to being involved in the lives of Hitoshi and Eri as much as she is, and so soon at that."

"Well hey, Aizawa," Sekijiro replied, "The fact that you have a constant partner there helped to get the Youth Services bastards off of your ass significantly. You just have to keep things up with Ms. Joke is all now."

"Oh, that reminds me, Sho," Hizashi said, "When you and Emi official tie the knot, who will serve as your best man?"

Shrugging, the underground hero replied, "I don't know, I'll probably pick from between you and Sekijiro for it, I guess. I mean, I'm still try-"

"AAAAIIIIIIEEEEEE!"

The three teachers all stopped short when they heard one of the first year girls shriek out in a mix of fright and horror. The shriek was followed up by embarrassed cries from who sounded like Mineta, and the angry, annoyed shouts of various boys and girls from a mix of the 1-A and 1-B classes. Worried about what was going on, Aizawa ran to go around the corner in the direction that all of the noise came from, with Hizashi and Sekijiro in hot pursuit. When the three teachers rounded the corner, they saw what was going on, and to be honest, what they saw had all three of them rather confused.

Bakugo and Todoroki both had Mineta up against the wall by his neck, at least three feet off of the ground, while some girls and a few boys all stood around and watched, with the girls crying out in disgusted embarrassment at Mineta while some of the boys were similarly scolding him. "Hey, what all is going on here?!" Sekijiro exclaimed, getting everyone to turn to face him.

Pointing an accusing finger at Mineta where he was pinned up against the wall, Pony cried, "Purple shorty expose his manhood to me and girls! His pants plus underwear dropped! He very much creep me out!"

"I'm telling you, I didn't do it myself!" Mineta exclaimed, "I could tell that someone had pantsed me right as I was standing in front of-" The infamous pervert was cut off when Bakugo, pissed that Mineta exposed himself to Pony causing her to freak out, slugged him in the face really hard. After Bakugo punched Mineta, Todoroki followed it up by punching Mineta just as hard and in the same spot that Bakugo punched. The two-toned boy punched Mineta because Reiko had also been exposed to the short-statured teen's lewdness.

At the order of the senseis, Bakugo and Todoroki allowed Mineta down to the floor. Aizawa then gave Mineta a chance to speak up. "…I'm being serious," Mineta moaned in an embarrassed and pained tone as he gently rubbed the sore side of his face, "I could tell that someone had pantsed me right in front of everyone. I did not drop my pants and underwear myself, I swear!"

"With all due respect, it had to have been you, Mineta," Kirishima remarked, a suspicious look on his face as he crossed his arms over his chest, "I mean, I certainly didn't do it, and I never saw any of the other guys, or any of the girls, pants you for that matter." Both Sero and Kaminari were in agreement with Kirishima, as both of them shook their heads at Mineta in a clear sign of disapproval towards their short classmate.

"Now boys," Tenya began, "Despite how our classmate has acted in the past, let's try to be reasonable here. Given that none of us had pantsed Mineta, and he most likely certainly wouldn't intentionally expose himself to any of our female schoolmates because that would undoubtedly get him expelled from U.A., there's a chance that someone we didn't notice used their quirk to pants Mineta while all of us were distracted. Unless we can confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mineta really is guilty, we owe it to the integrity of our school's history to give Mineta the benefit of the doubt."

Despite how the three of them were a bit lost on patience at this point when it came to Mineta, Aizawa, Hizashi and Sekijiro all had to agree with what Tenya said, appreciating how he was trying to be the most reasonable here. Holding a hand to his chin as he wore a look on his face that made it clear he was trying to evaluate everything, Tenya remarked, "Mineta claims that he felt someone pants him, even though none of us here were seen doing it."

"Oh, maybe Aizawa's student Hagakure did it," Sekijiro guessed, "I mean, she's permanently invisible, so all she had to do was take off what all she had on, then sneak up and do the deed."

Kyoka gently shook her head in response to what the Blood Hero guessed. "That's not possible, Sekijiro-sensei," Kyoka remarked, "Hagakure asked Yaoyorozu to go with her to check out some stores because she wants to get a small little gift to surprise Ojiro with. Neither Hagakure nor Yaoyorozu are even on campus right now."

"A person with a strong enough telekinetic quirk, maybe?" Izuku half-offered half-guessed.

"Not possible," Tenya remarked, "The only person that has such a quirk here at U.A. is Eunice, and she's still attending that therapy thing of hers off campus. She's not going to be back for at least two more days.""

Aizawa crossed his arms over his chest, giving off a mildly annoyed air. "Well regardless what happened, we need to look into this matter to figure out how exactly it could have gone down." Turning to regard Mineta, the underground hero remarked, "In the meanwhile, I'm going to have to do something to discipline Mineta. Even if he is innocent in all of this, it doesn't change the fact that his manhood was exposed to some of the female students. Parents are bound to throw a hissy fit if nothing is done to punish Mineta."

Mineta cried out in a clear tone of complaint, upset that he was being punished for something that wasn't even his fault. The other students, for their part, all agreed that Mineta had to be punished in some manner for what had happened, with many of them truly thinking that the infamous pervert really was at fault here for his Little Mineta being exposed to some of the girls, and in a public setting no less.

* * *

Over at the girls-only dorm later that evening, all of the 1-A and 1-B girls that weren't out of U.A. for the time being were back meeting with Nejire. The sole girl of the Big Three gave off a troubled sigh. "…Well there goes plan B, I guess," Nejire remarked in a mildly disappointed tone, "Not only that, but Hagakure's role in plan B was almost exposed."

Hagakure, if the light green plastic headband she wore was any indication, nodded a few times in agreement. "Yeah, thank goodness that Kyoka covered for me." Letting out a resigned sigh, the invisible girl remarked, "I can't believe I stripped naked and snuck up to Mineta from behind to pants him, and it was all for nothing."

"We have much bad luck in getting short pervert out," Pony remarked in a tone of agreement, drawing nods from a lot of the other girls.

As the girls all thought about what to do, they perked up when one among their number clapped her hands, getting all of them to turn to see Reiko clapping her hands a bit before she settled down when she saw that she had everyone's attention. "…Ladies," the ghost girl of class 1-B began, a mildly amused smirk on her face, "If I may be so bold, I believe that I have an idea for what we can try as plan C."

"Oh?" Sakaki remarked as she turned to regard Reiko, "What do you have in mind?" Reiko turned to regard Sakaki, giving her a slightly bigger smirk. This only drew a confused look out of the fat cat girl.

* * *

The following morning over in front of the class 1-A dorm building, Aizawa and Hizashi were meeting up with Aggro, who was accompanied by his protégé Lincoln. "So yeah, I would like to meet with Kirishima and Komori as soon as possible," the Samurai Hero remarked, "Since they were involved in taking down one of the main villains that I came here to take down. The good folks over at the Commission also want to get a few words from both of them on the matter so that they can put it into the Moonfish re-capture report."

Aizawa and Hizashi both nodded in understanding to Aggro's request. "That sound reasonable, Sengoku," the underground hero said, "You can probably talk to Kirishima soon, given that he and the other boys in my class should all be awake by now. But as for you talking to Sekijiro's student Komori, you may have to speak to Recovery Girl and get permission from her first, as Komori is still resting in the infirmary because of the asthma scare she had a few days ago."

"Asthma scare?" Lincoln repeated in a mildly concerned tone, "She didn't have a straight up asthma attack, did she? I mean, I know firsthand how bad asthma can be since my best friend Cl-"

Hizashi held up his right hand in a gesture signaling to Lincoln for him to stop. "Easy there, little listener, it's no big deal. There was no straight up attack, but Recovery Girl still wants to make sure that Kinoko is rested enough before letting-"

The cockatiel-haired hero was cut off when he, Aizawa, Aggro and Lincoln all heard one of the boys in class 1-A shout at the top of his lungs about something extremely wrong that Mineta had apparently done. The group of four all moved to head into Heights Alliance when Bakugo came barreling out of the front doors himself. The explosive teen looked around a bit until he saw the two teachers and two foreigners approaching the dorm building.

Pointing right at his teachers, Bakugo said, "Aizawa-sensei! Hizashi-sensei! You guys need to come check this out quick! Grape Head really fucked up big time!"

Aggro, his gaze narrowing out of suspicion, drew one of his bokken from the cloth carrying case he wore over his back; the one he drew out was Nightfall Moon, the bokken that he had inherited from his late father Shigure. "…I'm guessing that this 'Grape Head' boy of which you speak is the same little deviant who I caught fondling Leni-chan's butt when your class had that field trip to Royal Woods a while ago." Aggro then used his quirk to encase Nightfall Moon in an aura of golden flames, roughly around the same time Lincoln drew out his special bowie knife. "What did he do?" Aggro demanded more than asked, his tone sounding almost murderous.

"Uh, Sengoku," Hizashi said, "There's no need for you or Ezio to charge into Heights Alliance with your weapons drawn. I'm sure that, whatever it is that Mineta's supposedly done, we can still approach this matter with the necessary tact that is re-"

"The little pervert was just found to be in possession of a bag full of girls' underwear!" Bakugo exclaimed, "A quick count suggests that he got one pair from each of the girls in 1-A and 1-B!"

The four guys in the group stood silently, mildly dumbfounded looks on their faces. Turning to look at the senseis, Aggro remarked in a dry tone, "…So do Lincoln-kun and I charge in with our weapons drawn, yes or no?"

Gesturing to the visiting heroes with his right hand, Aizawa replied with a hint of mild frustration and exasperation, "Just…just put your weapons away. We'll try to deal with this as calmly as we can manage it." The Americans agreed, with Aggro willing the golden flame aura on his bokken to dissipate before returning it to the cloth carrying case on his back. Similarly, Lincoln put his special bowie knife away as he followed Aggro and the U.A. teachers into the dorm building for class 1-A's boys, with Bakugo showing them inside.

* * *

That evening over at the girls-only dorm building, all of the girls that resided there that were presently available were back to meeting with one another. "…Well there goes plan C then," Habuko remarked in a disappointed tone, "But then again, trying to frame Mineta as a panty thief by having each of us put one pair of panties each in a bag and then panting said bag in his dorm room probably wasn't going to work."

"It is clear that Mineta, the total embodiment of lust that he is," Ibara began, her tone sounding very bitter, "Had made some manner of pact with the devil to keep himself from receiving the righteous punishment that he has long since had coming."

Shrugging, Mina said, "Well hey, at least we were able to keep from getting into trouble by keeping the teachers from finding out that we did it because we were trying to frame Mineta. The teachers think it was a prank pulled on Mineta by some second year boys here at U.A. because said theoretical second years wanted to try and get a first year into some serious trouble."

At the head of the meeting table, Nejire let out a troubled, resigned sigh. "…Girls, I think that we ought to give up on trying to get Mineta out of school." The rest of the girls all turned to face the sole third year among their number, all of them wearing shocked expressions. Sighing in a tone of resignation, Nejire remarked, "I mean, all of our efforts thus far have failed. The most we were able to do was get Mineta an afterschool detention, some house arrest, and getting him beaten up by some of the boys in 1-A."

The various girls in 1-A and 1-B all had troubled looks on their faces, all of them starting to see what their sempai was seeing; all of their efforts to try and get Mineta out of their school and out of their lives had not only thus far failed, but any and all future efforts would probably fail as well. The girls were starting to resign themselves to the fact that Mineta…simply was going to be sticking around for far longer than any of them would like.

Even one more day with the unrepentant pervert was more than any of them could stand.

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Author's notes;

Sorry if the idea of seeing Nejire lead the girls of classes 1-A and 1-B in a secret mission to try and get Mineta out of U.A. strikes a nerve with some of you. And I'm further sorry because it's going to get worse before it gets better. But there is a purpose behind this Mineta-centric mini-arc, given that it plays a key role for building the setting of this story as a whole; it's also going to play heavily into both a spin-off set in this story's same setting, as well as a sequel to this story. Yes, I'm thinking that far ahead.

Anyway, the next chapter is going to send a lot of you for a doozey, given what happens; I won't reveal what happens here, but let's just say that a certain accusation is made by a certain party at a certain purple ball-haired pervert. It'll be the worst thing on his rap sheet to date, and more than one person will be out to learn if his blood really is the same color as his hair as some folks at U.A. have claimed.


	55. Chapter 55

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter fifty-five: The trial of Mineta

One late afternoon over at U.A. High School, Kinoko Komori and Eunice Sirknight could be seen heading over to the dorm building where the school staff resides if any of them can't return to their actual homes for whatever reason. The two girls had completely missed what all had taken place over the last few days, given that Eunice had to leave for some sort of therapy thing, and Kinoko had a bit of a scare with her asthma. The two girls, 1-A and 1-B alike, were good to go, so they were simply going to see their respective teachers if there was anything that they had missed in their absence.

As the two girls made their way to the teachers' dorm building, Kinoko was telling Eunice a story about how she was visited in the infirmary by her boyfriend Kirishima, who always came by once a day while she was recovering. "I still can't believe how lucky I am, really," Kinoko said, "I mean, not only am I dating the boy of my dreams, but he's also very caring and attentive." Letting out a giggle, the mushroom girl added, "Not to mention a bit on the silly side, since on the time a fruit basket was brought to me, he offered to peel all of the fruit for me."

"There must have been a lot of apples," Eunice remarked.

Kinoko had to suppress another giggle. "There was only one apple, really. There was a bunch of grapes, some strawberries, a pineapple, a water-" The mushroom girl was cut off when she and Eunice nearly got run over when, to their surprise, Izuku and Shinso came practically stomping out of the dorm building the teachers resided in. It was clear to the girls that both boys were very much unhappy with something that had happened.

The green-haired cinnamon roll gently shook his head, letting out a resigned sigh. "…I'm sorry Shinso, but I am done. I am done trying to get others to give Mineta the benefit of the doubt. What he did goes beyond even the worst I feared he could have ever done."

"No, no, there is no need to be sorry," Shinso remarked, sounding like he wanted to take someone in particular and grind them into a viscous red paste, "I always had a nagging feeling in the back of my head that Mineta couldn't be trusted. And although a part of me is happy that I ended up being right, I didn't want to find out that I was right like _this_." The brainwasher pounded a fist into his open hand. "That little creep is lucky that Aizawa-sensei got to him first and threw him into indefinite house arrest. Because there are a _lot_ of people who want to break him. Me, Ms. Joke, Hizashi-sensei, Sengoku, Mirio-sempai when he finds out-"

"Umm, hello?" Shinso stopped short, and he and Izuku both turned to see Kinoko and Eunice standing there a few feet away. It had been Kinoko who had called out to the boys. "Is there a problem that Eunice and I missed while the both of us were gone?" Kinoko asked.

Izuku and Shinso both let out troubled sighs before the former began to explain things to the girls. "There's…no easy way to say this, Kinoko," Izuku said, "But do you remember any of what Kirishima told you about when he, myself and a few of our classmates were beaten up by Sengoku during our class's field trip to Royal Woods a while ago?"

Class 1-B's resident mushroom expert nodded a few times in the affirmative. "Yes. Eijiro told me that seven guys in his class, including himself, were all brutally beaten by the Samurai Hero because your perverted classmate Mineta led him into attacking them, all because Mineta had grabbed Sengoku's girlfriend's butt and was caught. Mineta ended up getting away from getting the beating that he had coming."

"Well, here's the thing, girls," Shinso said in a resigned tone, "Mineta…has done it again. He grabbed the butt of a girl here at U.A. Due to all of the trouble he's gotten himself into in the past for similarly perverted offences, Aizawa-sensei said that this latest incident, if the investigation that has been launched turns out to be true, will be the final straw and he'll personally see to it that Mineta will be expelled from U.A. Hell, Mineta may even be expelled and _arrested_."

Both Kinoko and Eunice took a shocked step back, with Eunice even covering her rear end with her hands, as if she were afraid that Mineta might try to touch it. "Umm, so which girl did Mineta, umm, do the naughty touch to?" Eunice asked, clearly nervous and worried, "Was it Habuko, or Hatsume? Maybe Uraraka, or was-"

"It was Eri."

Eunice stopped short suddenly, her and Kinoko's respective gazes both on Izuku when he told them who was hurt in this incident. "It was Eri who Mineta had, at this moment supposedly, touched inappropriately. We won't really know for sure until after the investigation has been concluded, but I have a dreading feeling that I am not going to like what the truth in this incident is going to turn out to be."

Both girls who had been absent were beyond shocked. Neither of them knew all that much about Mineta, beyond what Kirishima has said to Kinoko about how Mineta was very unmanly with the way that he acts, and what Tenya had warned Eunice about in regards to their short-statured classmate. They knew that Mineta was a very naughty and perverted person by nature, but to think that even he would stoop so low as to do so unforgivable of an act.

Eunice and Kinoko were both revolted beyond description by the news that had just been dropped on the both of them.

* * *

"I WILL KILL THAT LITTLE FUCKER!" Mitsuki exclaimed at the top of her lungs; due to the ongoing investigation into the accusations made against Mineta, a lot of students at U.A. were all being given time off of classes. This allowed the students to see relatives of theirs, with one such example being Izuku and Bakugo seeing their respective moms. Inko and Izuku had gone over to see Mitsuki and Bakugo, and when the boys mentioned what had happened, Mitsuki, predictably, had gone off like a nuclear warhead.

Standing up rather forcefully from her seat in the living room, Mitsuki bellowed, "THAT SICK PERVERTED BASTARD IS A DEAD MAN WALKING! I WILL BREAK HIS BONES, FLAY HIS FLESH, BOIL HIS BLOOD, AND SCATTER HIS LIFE-ESSENCE ACROSS THE FOUR CORNERS OF OBLIVION! I WILL THRUST ONTO HIM A CORNUCOPIA OF PAIN AND SUFFERING THE LIKES OF WHICH HAS NEVER BEEN SEEN IN THIS WORLD, AND WILL NEVER BE SEEN AGAIN!"

Izuku, Inko and even Bakugo were all paling back out of sheer shock by the pure, unadulterated outrage Mitsuki was exuding as she ranted on about how Mineta was lucky that there was about a mile and a half of distance, plus the security of where he was being held, standing between him and her. As Mitsuki had finally finished her screaming ranting, Inko got her to settle back down as the ashy-haired woman breathed hard for a bit.

When Mitsuki had regained her breath, she looked at everyone in the living room. "…Sorry that I lost my tempter there for a moment, everyone," Mitsuki apologized, having the decency to look a little bit embarrassed for the tantrum that she had just thrown, "But I had a dreading feeling that today was going to be bad when, as I was getting dressed, I noticed that my left nip-"

"We don't need to know about _that_, mom," Bakugo said quickly, cutting his mother off when he could tell what she was going to casually mention. After lowering the hand he raised to gesture to his mom to stop, Bakugo said, "But yeah, in regards to what all you were yelling about, I really can't blame you for getting as pissed off as you were just now. Hell, if I had caught Grape Head grabbing Pony's butt, then there would have been a very good chance that the beating I would give Grape Head as a result would lead to me getting expelled from U.A." Leaning back in his seat, Bakugo went on while he was crossing his arms over his chest, "But there's no need to worry about that now."

Izuku nodded in agreement, as did a still very clearly steamed Mitsuki. Inko, while she did agree with the others, didn't show anger like Bakugo and Mitsuki, as well as Izuku to a lesser extent, did. Rather, the green-haired woman gave off an air of being completely disappointed. "I never would have thought it that someone would have done something so heinous," Inko said, "And to think I cared about him all those times he was struck in his testicles."

Inko would have said something else, but she was cut off by snorted-back laughter that had come from Mitsuki. "…Heh, sorry about that Inko," the ashy-haired woman said, "But I just think that it's funny how you, of all people, had said the word testicles just now."

"In…any case," Inko went on, "I hope that either one, for Mineta's sake the investigation shows that he really didn't do what he's been accused of, or two, if the investigation does confirm that he did it then he's appropriately punished for it."

"Mom, Mineta's been accused of, as Eri had put it, giving her butt a no-no touch," Izuku said as he reached towards where his drink was sitting on the coffee table. He grabbed it, took a sip from it, then held it. "…Mark my words, that fucker's going to burn."

Inko's eyes widened a bit out of mild shock to hear her son use such language. The green-haired woman saw out the corners of her eyes that Bakugo and Mitsuki both chuckled in a way that showed that the both of them not only approved of Izuku's newfound stronger language, but that hearing him say that Mineta's 'going to burn' clearly amused them.

* * *

Later, the students of Aizawa's class had all gathered in their homeroom at U.A. Out of the twenty-five students the underground hero was responsible for, only twenty-four of them were present in the classroom, and the sole missing student was the topic of discussion. "I still can't believe that little creep actually pulled such a stunt!" Yaoyorozu exclaimed, "I mean, I always knew that he was beyond unrepentant, but to think that even he would stoop so low…"

"There aren't enough kicks in the world to throw right into that gremlin's balls to punish him for what he did," Kyoka swore, "I mean, he literally grabbed Eri's rear end."

Turning to regard the rock music lover, Yaoyorozu said, "Umm, Kyoka, didn't Kaminari grab your butt a few days ago?"

Waving off her wealthy classmate's question, Kyoka explained, "Well that's different, mostly because Kaminari had my consent to do so that time, and we're both around the same age."

"Wait, you girls talking about Kaminari reminds me," Hatsume began, "He's the only person left that's anything _close_ to resembling a friend of Mineta's. If this whole investigation thing ends up proving that Mineta really did do what Eri was crying about, what will Kaminari-"

"I'll be done with him."

The eccentric inventor stopped short when she, as well as the other 1-A girls, all turned to face the direction that they heard Kaminari speak from. As such, they spotted the electric quirk user standing there, regarding them with an expression that was a mix of many emotions; resigned, sad, angry, disappointed, frustrated, confused, lost. Kaminari overall looked like he had no idea what to do, like a sad, lost puppy that more of the girls aside from just Kyoka felt like running up to and giving him a hug.

Kaminari let out a troubled sigh as he said, "This…if this ends up being true, then I honestly don't want anything more to do with him. I'll just focus on what other friends here at U.A. that I'm on good terms with."

"So just Kyoka, Bakugo, and the rest of the squad," Mina said, drawing a nod out of Kaminari. Letting out a resigned sigh, the pink-skinned girl remarked, "Kaminari, I know that you and Mineta had some sort of bond between the two of you, but you should have listened to me when I told you that you should have cut ties with him."

The electric quirk user gently shook his head, a look of disappointment on his face. "…If I had known that something like this might have happened later on down the line from when you told me to leave Mineta behind, then I would have done so."

As the girls were trying to cheer Kaminari up (seriously, he looked like a sad, kicked puppy to them), a group of some of the boys were talking together in another part of the classroom, near the front of the room near the door. "I'm still beyond pissed what that fucker had the gull to pull off," Shinso swore, "I mean, Eri's pretty much my little kid sister, for fuck's sake. And believe you me, there's a lot more people than just myself who'd love to line up to take turns strangling him if the investigation confirms he did what he did."

Izuku nodded in agreement as he listed off names on the top of his fingertips. "Yeah, Shinso. There's you, plus Aizawa-sensei if it wasn't for his professional ethic, Ms. Joke, Hizashi-sensei, and Sengoku. Hell, I'll go ahead and add myself, because I'm pretty steamed at Mineta right now because of-" Izuku was cut off when he and the other guys heard the door to the classroom slide open all of a sudden.

To the surprise of the 1-A boys, plus the 1-A girls when they all saw what was going on, the Big Three all walked into the classroom; as Aizawa was absent since he was helping to do the investigation, the third years were essentially in charge. They got to the front of the classroom, standing there side-by-side in a row, with a very clearly displeased Mirio standing in the center of said line. The buff blonde boy clapped his hands together before wringing them slightly.

"…So. I just heard what happened," Mirio said, clearly unamused, "I would like to know more about it." The unamused tone, the firm, unsmiling expression, the clear air of barely restrained anger that Mirio was giving off. All of it was doing wonders to make every last one of the 1-A students who were present in the classroom feel very much unsettled.

* * *

That evening at the Asui residence, Tsuyu was able to visit her family to have dinner with them. What's more is that Tsuyu was able to bring Tokoyami along. Ganma and Beru were happy to see both their oldest child and said child's boyfriend, and Tsuyu's younger siblings were both happy to see that Tokoyami had come by. However, both Tsuyu and Tokoyami had a lot on their minds, and surprisingly enough it was Samidare who was the first to notice the resigned looks on their respective faces.

The sole Asui boy pointed up at his older sister and older sister's boyfriend. "You both are unhappy about something. Why are you both unhappy?"

"It's…something of a nature that I'm certain I speak for Tsuyu as well when I say that the both of us don't feel exactly comfortable talking about," Tokoyami replied, drawing an agreeing nod out of Tsuyu.

Samidare continued to look blankly up at Tokoyami with his dry, unemotional expression. It wasn't until a solid ten seconds had passed before Samidare spoke up. "Someone did something at your and big sis's school that was very naughty, I guess." Both Tokoyami and Tsuyu went a bit wide-eyed with surprise when Samidare just up and guessed, with surprising accuracy all things considered, what had happened. "You both look troubled like how dad did when he came home from work one time and told mom about how one of his co-workers gave another co-worker a very naughty touch, and the naughty co-worker was fired because of it."

Tsuyu and Tokoyami both looked to Ganma and Beru, both of whom gave slow and hesitant nods that nonetheless gave the two teens the okay to explain. "…Yes, Samidare," Tsuyu said, being sure to choose her words carefully, "One of me and Fumikage's classmates at school gave a…a no-no touch to the butt of a girl that's barely a year older than Satsuki."

"Some little hooligan at your school did what now?!" Ganma exclaimed, clearly looking like he had blown a fuse. The Asui patriarch's exclamation got both teens to look up from the kids and right to him and Beru, who looked very much shocked and disappointed.

Nodding once, Tsuyu said to her parents, "It's true, I'm afraid kero. Fumikage, the rest of our class and I had found out that our classmate Mineta-" Tsuyu was cut off when Samidare blew a raspberry, but this was because she had train him to blow raspberries whenever Mineta has been mentioned by name. "…Because me and Fumikage's classmate in question had touched the butt of Eri, the girl that Aizawa-sensei took in as a foster child."

"She's that little girl that Tsuyu and I told you about a while ago, Mr. and Mrs. Asui," Tokoyami remarked, "The one that has a crush on Samidare." The raven-headed teen gave off a resigned, troubled sigh. "What had happened…it truly is darker than anything I ever could have imagined. Darker than the darkest of mad banquets of darkness, that's for sure."

Beru, putting her hands on her hips, remarked with a firm and disappointed expression, "Well, I certainly hope that classmate of yours and Tsuyu's is given what he has coming!" Ganma, his arms crossed over his chest, nodded a few times in agreement with what his wife had just said as he wore a clearly pissed look on his face. Tsuyu and Tokoyami could both tell from Ganma's visage of anger that Mineta was on the lucky side right now, as he was not here at the Asui residence at the moment. Otherwise, it would be rather likely that the toad-like man would have gotten physically angry at Mineta.

Letting off a resigned sigh, Tsuyu said, "Well there's no need to worry, mom and dad. The school is looking into the matter to make absolute sure that Mineta really did do what Eri said that he did. We just need to trust that U.A. will see justice served kero."

"Well given that it's a school that trains the numerous generations of pro heroes, you'd think that they'd easily get justice," Ganma remarked. Letting off a sigh that was a clear sign he was trying to calm down, Ganma said, "Well anyway, we ought to have dinner now."

"Yes, come on now, everyone," Beru said as she looked to address the teens and the kids, "We all need to-oh!" Beru deviated mid-sentence when she saw that Samidare was covering his face with his hands as he was giving off embarrassed moaning noises. "Did something make him feel embarrassed?" the frog-like woman asked.

Both Tsuyu and Tokoyami tried to think about what could have embarrassed Samidare, but they were cut off when Satsuki said, "Oh! Big bro must be embarrassed because Fumikage said that a there's a girl that has a crush on him!" When his little sister mentioned the fact that there really is indeed a girl out there who has a crush on him, Samidare's embarrassed moaning became a little bit louder as he dropped to a crouching fetal position.

Tokoyami, as he looked down at the boy he had unknowingly embarrassed, felt someone looking at him. Turning, he came face-to-face with Tsuyu's usual stare, but the raven-headed teen could tell full well that she was looking at him very unapprovingly for embarrassing her little brother. To his credit, Tokoyami knew that he screwed up, and offered a humbled apology for his lack of keeping things in mind.

* * *

The following day, there was a thorough questioning of all involved persons in the incident, with the school staff of U.A. doing the questioning. Naturally, when he was asked about what all was going on, Mineta claimed that he didn't do anything, especially what he was being accused of in the incident. The investigating teachers, Aizawa and Hizashi, naturally did not believe Mineta at all, knowing full well what kind of a personality the infamous, unrepentant pervert has.

The two men then interviewed others that were involved in the incident. Since Eri, a young girl, was one of said persons and the victim, they had to be extra careful when questioning her. Aizawa and Hizashi got it from the little horned girl that, right after the 'incident', Eri went right to Ms. Joke and asked her to help her set up and take a bath, because the incident made her 'feel dirty'. The Smile Hero, her motherly instincts kicking in even though she technically wasn't a mother yet, complied, sending Aizawa a quick call while Eri was bathing. This is how news of Eri being upset and asking to take a bath had reached the underground hero.

Aizawa and Hizashi also found out that Emi had informed Shinso after informing Aizawa, given that the brainwasher was 'her and Aizawa's other child' as Ms. Joke had put it. Although he was a bit embarrassed with the way Emi referred to Eri and Shinso, Aizawa appreciated the fact that she was keeping an eye out for the safety and well-being of the two minors. Shinso ran into Izuku on the way to see Emi and Eri, and that's how the green-eyed boy found out. Izuku is a constant, positive presence in Eri's life, so having him be there for her was a good thing.

It wasn't until a bit after Izuku and Shinso were seen leaving the teachers' dorm building by the returning Kinoko and Eunice that Emi called the police and explained to them what happened. This allowed for the Smile Hero to file a police report, which was part of the reason why Mineta was placed on indefinite house arrest; a police report was filed against him for what had taken place, even though he was denying all accusations.

It wasn't the first time Mineta tried to squirm out of punishment. Just ask Sengoku.

Soon enough, the U.A. staff, with some help from Detective Naomasa, had gathered all the necessary evidence, got all relevant testimony. After shifting through all of what they had been able to gather, the teachers came to a conclusion on the whole matter. The incident as a whole, just by virtue of what all it entailed, was more than a burden on Nezu and the rest of the staff at Japan's top hero high school ever wanted to deal with.

This is especially considering how they already have enough burdens on their plate, what with aiding in the round-up of all escaped villains from Tartarus and the clean-up of the last of All for One's influence that's still out on the streets, mainly the doctor friend of the greatest nemesis of All Might. The school staff of U.A. would make an announcement on the matter sometime the next morning, but until then everyone was going to have to wait on the matter.

…

"I'm serious, Inko," Mitsuki remarked as the two women talked while the two of them chatted it up in Mitsuki's kitchen, "When I was getting dressed this morning, I noticed that my left nipple was inverted. I have no fucking clue how that happened, but it's weird."

Inko nodded along, and was about to say that maybe Mitsuki was just imagining things. But before the green-haired woman would speak up, she was cut off when the door to the Bakugo family residence opened. Both Inko and Mitsuki got up to go see who it was that was coming in, and to their mild surprise it was their respective sons, both of which were wearing disappointed looks on their respective faces.

Both women were concerned, seeing their sons look like that. "Izuku, Katsuki, are the two of you doing alright?" Inko asked in a concerned tone.

Izuku let out a troubled, resigned sigh before he spoke up. "…No mom." Giving a gentle shake of his head, Izuku replied, "U.A. did it's the last bits of its investigation into the accusations that were made towards me and Kacchan's classmate Mineta."

The ashy-haired teen nodded in confirmation. "We don't know what Principal Nezu and the rest of the teachers have decided on right now, but regardless of what will result is going to be, there is no way that the resulting fallout will be pretty," Bakugo said, "Mark my words, by the end of all of this, there's going to be a lot of offended persons. There's no way that we can clear all of this and get away with everyone singing about sunshine and lollipops in the end."

Both women looked concerned as they turned to regard one another. It was true how what had happened was something that would affect things for everyone, and for quite some time to come. But there was no way of knowing just what exactly was going to happen from here on out.

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Author's notes;

Yeah, this is what I meant when I said that things would get worse before they get better. Let me make it clear that cases like what happened here are **NO** joke; that probably goes a long way to explain why Mineta's character is so unpopular, especially here in the States. I know what took place here is the worst thing ever thrown at Mineta (it's part of why I changed the rating of this story back to M), but like I said, it's a necessary development for what's to come, both in regards to the sequel and the spin-off.

Anyway, the mini-arc will conclude in the next chapter, and after that the rest of this arc as a whole will get back on track. How things will proceed from here on out cannot be predicted, but there will be twists and turns and revelations, especially at the tail end of this arc.


	56. Chapter 56

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter fifty-six: The culling of Mineta

It was a chilly (but pleasantly so) morning early in the new year when the students of U.A.'s first year hero course classes, 1-A and 1-B, arrived at their classes and were told by their respective homeroom teachers, Aizawa and Sekijiro, to follow them to the large classroom where the big joint math exam from a while ago was held. When all of the present students had taken their seats in the classroom, Aizawa and Sekijiro moved to stand in the front of the classroom, so that all eyes were on the two of them.

As the two homeroom teachers moved to the front of the large classroom, Hizashi entered the classroom and went over to join his co-workers. When the three teachers were all together, they faced all present students in the classroom. It was Aizawa who first spoke up, clearing his throat with a forced cough before he began. "Students, there is something that we, that being myself, Sekijiro and Hizashi, need to inform you about in regards to your schoolmate, Minoru Mineta. The investigation into the allegations made against him in very recent events has just wrapped up, and U.A., along with Detective Naomasa, has reached a conclusion."

All forty-nine first years were on the edge of their seats as Aizawa let out a resigned sigh, a clear sign that the news he had to tell them was not light. "We have concluded that Mineta is, in fact, _guilty_ of the allegations that were made against him. Sekijiro, Hizashi and I were all present earlier in Nezu's meeting room with other noted members of U.A.'s staff when Nezu, who very clearly did so with a heavy heart, signed the forms officializing Mineta's expulsion from U.A."

"Not only that," Sekijiro added, "But as Nezu signed off on the expulsion forms, Detective Naomasa got a call from police headquarters, letting him know that the warrant for Mineta's arrest had just gone through. As we speak, the detective is on his way over to Mineta's residence to arrest him and bring him in for questioning."

"We understand if the shock of one of your schoolmates being not only expelled but also arrested is a lot for all of you to take in," Hizashi remarked to the students in a very understanding tone, "So that is why it has been agreed that you all will be given today off from classes in order to come to terms with what had happened. Of course, if any of you all need to see Hound Dog, he's still free to talk to you to help you all come to terms with what all happened to Mineta. Granted, I think that today's one of the days that Hound Dog is scheduled to see Eunice, but after that's taken care of any of you who feels the need to can swing by his office."

Aizawa looked around at the students in the classroom, saw expectant looks on all of their faces. "If any of you have any further questions before you're all dismissed, ask them now. Otherwise, as soon as Sekijiro, Hizashi and I can do so, we need to get out of here since we're going to be going out on a patrol with Sengoku in about an hour to hunt down some of the lesser villains that had broken out of Tartarus."

Right away, a number of hands had gone up. Aizawa picked on the first one, which ended up being Tenya's hand. "Aizawa-sensei," the glasses-wearing class rep from 1-A began, "Due to how the class sizes were increased to twenty-five recently, our class is at twenty-four students with Mineta's expulsion taken into account. Is there a chance that another student will be put into class 1-A due to the vacancy?"

The underground hero had a mildly intrigued look on his face as he considered Tenya's question for a bit. "…Huh, that's actually a fairly good question, Iida," Aizawa replied, "I'm going to have to ask Nezu about it later. Let me get back to you once I get Nezu's decision on the matter." After Tenya lowered his raised hand back down, he picked on the next raised hand, which was actually that of Monoma's.

"This…is actually for everyone in 1-A, to be honest," Monoma remarked. A lot of the students that were (still) in class 1-A were bracing themselves for one of Monoma's signature rants on how their class was inferior to his class. Surprisingly enough, no such rant ended up coming from the normally hysteric blonde holler monkey. Instead, with genuine sincerity, Monoma asked 1-B's rival class, "Are you guys, like, going to be okay? I mean, what happened to your classmate, as much as he had brought it upon himself, is still a rather big shocker. If any of you all want, you can swing by the 1-B boy's dorm to hang and talk about it."

"Monoma, if any of Aizawa's students feel conflicted about what had happened, they can talk to Hound Dog about it as Hizashi had said," Sekijiro remarked, "However, I have to admit that the concern you showed for your fellow schoolmates just now is commendable, especially given the fact that I know you seldom ever get along with any of Aizawa's students. Thanks for trying to be there for your fellow students."

Monoma, as he nodded in acknowledgement to his homeroom teacher, sat back down in his seat. After the blonde boy of class 1-B was seated back down, Aizawa called on a third hand, that being Mina's. Since she was called on, she lowered her hand and asked, "What other members of the staff are going to be busy today, senseis? Because I was hoping that I could get a permission slip signed so that I can leave campus because I need to take care of some shopping."

"Nemuri will still be free to sign off on the slip, Ashido," Aizawa replied, "Just make sure to follow the usual procedures when you're off campus." Mina nodded in thanks to her teacher, and when the three teachers saw that there were no more questions, they dismissed all of the forty-nine students that were in the classroom.

…

"So, it actually happened," Izuku remarked as he walked and talked with Todoroki, Tenya, Shinso, Uraraka and Tsuyu. The green-eyed boy's tone was resigned, making it clear that he had long since given up on something. Izuku gently shook his head, his messy mop of green hair shaking a bit as he did so. "Mineta had up and actually gotten himself expelled from U.A. due to something unrepentant that he did."

Izuku's friends all nodded in agreement with him, showing that all five of them were just as disappointed as he was. The two girls of the group in particular were disgusted with what their former classmate had done, especially given what said former classmate had done said action to. The silence of the group was broken when Tenya clapped his hands together, getting everyone that was with him to stop and turn to face him.

"What our former classmate had done cannot be undone, and there's very little chance if any at all that it can be forgiven," the glasses-wearing boy remarked, "The best thing that I believe any of us can do at this point is simply forget about him and move on. Things are in the hands of the law now, and we ought to trust in that to see things through here."

Shinso gave off a mildly irritated, bitter scoff. "…There's still no being able to forget what that sick bastard had done. At least if you ask me for my opinion."

The others in the group understood that Shinso would naturally be upset, given that he was, to some degree, related to who was hurt the most by what Mineta had done to get himself not only expelled from U.A., but arrested as well. They all had it figured that the brainwasher was without a doubt going to need to do what Hizashi-sensei had pointed out was available and go see Hound Dog for counseling. But that was not going to be right away; for now, the boys were figuring out what to do with the day off that they found themselves with, while Uraraka and Tsuyu said that they needed to go see Mina as they were both going to join her for her off-campus shopping.

* * *

Some of the teachers at U.A., including the four temporary hires that were necessitated due to recent events involving various attacks, were in a teacher's lounge, relaxing for a bit before they all got back to doing work. Aizawa and Hizashi were sitting at a table, both of them drinking coffees as they sat with Pixie-Bob and Ryukyu. The Wild, Wild Pussycats member was very clearly angry, given how she was holding clenched hands in the air, shaking them a bit as she gave a skyward shout to the heavens.

"Of course," Pixie-Bob snarled, "Of _course_ that fucking little fucker only got as little fucking time as he fucking did! And with a chance of early fucking release if he fucking behaves himself!"

"Pixie," Aizawa began in a 'come on, now' kind of tone, "Given what all we were able to find in regards to the case, the five years in that juvenile detention facility, with the chance of early release for good behavior, was the best that could have been given to…" The underground hero stopped short, a disappointed and pained expression on his face as he looked like he was trying to pick his words carefully. "…To my former student."

Pixie-Bob slammed a gloved hand right down on the surface of the table, a look of pure rage etched on her face. "But what that fucking little fucker did! And to a girl! Only death is appropriate for that fucking perverted son of a fucking bit-"

Aizawa held up a hand, cutting the Wild, Wild Pussycats member off mid-rant. After Pixie-Bob settled down enough and sat back down, Aizawa gave her a look that had a notable amount of sympathy in it. "…I understand how you feel, Pixie," said the underground hero, "Especially given that it was Eri, who's essentially my _daughter_ damn it, that was hurt in this case. But the decision of the courts is final." He held his mug up to his mouth and said before taking a sip, "At least there was some measure of justice."

"Umm, I know it's the subject of the hour apparently," Hizashi remarked, "But it's a bit of a heavy subject. Can't we talk about something of a more positive variety before we have to get back to what all we need to do because of what happened?"

Setting down the mug of coffee she was drinking from, Ryukyu clapped her hands together once, getting the others at the table to all turn to regard her as she kept her hands held together like that. "Oh, I actually got something for that. You know how pro heroes occasionally show up to kids' birthday parties? Well, I'm actually set to appear at a kid's birthday party this Friday."

"Ah, now that sounds positively positive," Hizashi remarked, sounding very much happy at the change of tone that Ryukyu's schedule for this Friday will entail, "Just curious, but how much do you charge for showing up? I know that pro heroes only do the birthday party appearances if they're paid to do so by the parents."

"Heh, I hear that Endeavor charges a steep fee for that," Pixie-Bob remarked with a knowing smirk on her face, crossing her arms over her chest as she spoke.

To the curiosity of the others at the table, Ryukyu gently shook her head. "Actually, I'm not charging anything for this. When Tsuyu asked me about possible pricing for it, I told her that I'd be doing it pro bono."

Aizawa, arching a curious eyebrow, gave the Dragoon Hero a curious look. "You're…making an appearance at Tsuyu's birthday?"

"No, the party's not for her," Ryukyu explained, "It's for her little brother Samidare. From what I got on the matter, he's turning eleven." After she took another sip from her coffee, the Dragoon Hero added with a bit of knowing seriousness, "Plus, given what Sengoku was able to recover from Muscular after killing him, my showing up at Samidare's birthday party this Friday serves a rather practical purpose."

The others at the table all nodded in agreement; after Aggro killed Muscular a short while ago, a vanilla folder was found in a bag that the late villain had on his person at the time. The vanilla folder contained details on an assassination hit that was ordered out on the sole Asui boy. To make matters worse, the police and pro heroes were able to put two and two together and reach the conclusion that the person that ordered the hit out on Samidare is the 'mysterious benefactor' that has tried to have Uraraka killed as well. There's also speculation that the reach of that shady, unknown person had been behind the murder of Uraraka's mother as well.

Ryukyu drained her mug of coffee dry before setting it down gently on the table. "…It disgusts me how the families of two of my interns have been harassed and threatened, with death threats made to one and to the younger sibling of another. And then there's how Uraraka's mother had been murdered in her own home, in cold blood. If it wasn't for the fact that I'm a professional, then if I ever get my hands on the person that's behind all of this, I would have shown that bastard why the warmonger monsters have come to refer to me as 'the one they fear'."

The others sitting at the table did not begrudge the Dragoon Hero for how she felt on the matter. In fact, Hizashi even held his mug up towards Ryukyu, as if he were giving her a toast. As he held his coffee mug up in a toast to his co-worker, the cockatiel-haired hero remarked, "Fah hin kogaan mu draal." Ryukyu, with a mildly amused, appreciative smirk on her face, simply nodded once in thanks to Hizashi.

* * *

To say that the boys of class 1-A were surprised when they were all invited over to the girls-only dorm building for something would be a bit of an understatement. In fact, they were all further surprised when they ran into all of the 1-B boys on the way. "Yo Izuku, Shinso," Juzo remarked as he got their attention, "You boys and all the other guys in your class heading over to the girls-only dorm building as well?"

The softening quirk boy's two friends in 1-A both nodded in the affirmative. "I'm guessing that's why you and all of the boys in your class are here?" Shinso asked.

"Yeah, totally," Juzo confirmed, "Small world, huh?"

"Hey, do any of you guys have any idea why all of the girls are inviting us over to their dorm building?" Yosetsu asked in a curious tone, "I mean, it's the girls-only dorm building. And we're all boys."

Scoffing in a mildly annoyed tone, Bakugo barked, "The girls got a new dorm building all to themselves because of Grape Head, since he was the only real bother to them. Now that Grape Head's been given the boot, the girls have nothing to worry about. Hell, for all we know, the girls may be planning to throw a party to celebrate the fact that Grape Head's fucking gone now!"

As the boys from both 1-A and 1-B made their way up the steps that led to the front of the girls-only dorm, Izuku said, "Oh, come on now, Kacchan." When all of the boys had made it up the front steps, Izuku knocked on the large front door in order to let the girls inside know that he and the other boys had all arrived. "There's no need to be like that. I mean sure, Mineta had caused the girls no end of-"

Izuku was cut off when the door he knocked on opened, and he was blasted by upbeat, happy and excited party music. "WOOHOOHOOHOO!" the excited and clearly amused cheer of Mina called out, making Izuku turn and see that his pink-skinned classmate was wearing sunglasses on her face and a lampshade from what must have been a fancy lamp on her head. "Come on in now, boys!" Mina cheered, "We just got the 'Hooray Mineta's gone' party started! It's going to be off the chain!"

Yosetsu, with an expression that was an even mix of dry and mildly confused, pointed at Mina and said, "Hey Mina, isn't that the lampshade from Momo's new lamp that she had received yesterday from her family?"

"Who gives a fuck about details?" Mina replied, "We got a party going on!"

"Fuck yeah, Pinky!" Bakugo remarked as he and the rest of the squad were the first among all of the boys to make their way into the party that the girls were apparently throwing. The rest of the boys, both 1-A and 1-B alike, collectively just shrugged and thought fuck it. They proceeded to file into the girls-only dorm building, so as to get into the party that the girls were throwing.

* * *

And so the partying commenced. It was as epic of a house party that one can expect high schoolers to throw. There were even the kinds of party games you'd expect to see at a frat party, like how a mix of some of the boys from both classes, as well as Mina, Hatsume and Kyoka, were all chanting, "Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" as they watched Sato and Sakaki try to out-eat one another as they scarfed down cupcake after cupcake.

Setsuna went up all the stairs, hoped onto the smoothed polished wood handrailing, and proceeded to slide down, going with the spiraling curve until she reached the end at the base of the stairs on the ground floor and flew off. Luckily for her, she braced himself and was able to get back up after she flew into where Izuku, Shinso and Juzo were standing by as they watched the eating contest between Sato and Sakaki.

As all of the first years were partying, they were all pleasantly surprised when the Big Three, with Nejire leading Tamaki and Mirio in, came over. To everyone's further surprised, the Big Three had even brought little Eri along; she was holding onto Mirio's shoulders as she was being carried by him, sitting on his left forearm as it supported her. "Aww, there's everyone's favorite brave little girl," Mina said as she went over to the Big Three and Eri to ruffle the top of Eri's head, "Are you feeling better, Eri?"

The little horned girl had a mildly nervous, fearful look in her eyes. "…The purple one touched my butt," Eri said in a sad, ashamed tone, "Now I can never get married."

"Nonsense, Eri," Yaoyorozu said in a mildly firm but reassuring tone, "I'm certain that there are plenty of good, respectable boys who would love to go out with you."

Eri had a hint of nervousness in her eyes as she replied, "Like…like Asui-kun?"

Nejire let out a happy, delighted squeal of excitement. "Oh my goodness, that's right! Eri has the biggest cute little crush on Tsuyu's little brother! That is so adorable, I can just explode!"

As the sole girl of the Big Three hopped up and down out of how excited she was over the sheer adorableness of Eri having a crush on Samidare, Mirio and Tamaki proceeded to go talk to some of the boys after Mirio sat Eri down and left her with the girls. As the girls all proceeded to try and make Eri feel comfortable and at home, Mirio and Tamaki proceeded to speak with Izuku, Shinso, Bakugo, Todoroki, Kirishima, Tetsutetsu and Tenya.

Jerking a thumb over his right shoulder to point out where the girls were all partying with Eri, Mirio said to the boys, "Hey guys, uh, listen. Eri's been through quite a whole lot over the last few days. She thinks really poorly of herself because of what happened. I swear, I don't think I saw her that bad since we were still trying to help her get over how she had suffered at the hands of Overhaul, and speaking of which even Overhaul had the decency to not do what that purple little fucker did." Clapping his hands together, Mirio added, "So if we can work to help Eri recover from this, that would just be really grand."

"No need to worry about that, Mirio-sempai," Tenya said, "I'm certain that I speak for everyone here when I say that we will all do our part to help Eri re-"

Tenya was cut off when someone threw their arms around his shoulders from behind, surprising him a bit. Everyone that was in that group turned to look and saw that it was Eunice, who wore a pair of her special headphones at the moment. Following along behind Eunice was Kinoko, who made a slight turn to head straight over to Kirishima. Eunice grabbed the right earpad of her headphones and lifted them up before asking, "Hey Tenya, why are you and all of the boys here in the girls-only dorm? Also, why is there a party?"

"Yeah, I'm wondering about the party myself," Kinoko remarked. Looking up at and over to Kirishima, the mushroom girl asked, "Do you know why there's a party here, Eijiro?"

"Oh, Mina and all of the girls are throwing a party to celebrate Mineta being expelled from U.A.," the crimson-haired boy replied. A look of curiosity crossing his face, Kirishima asked, "Why, didn't you and Eunice both help out all of the other girls with getting the party ready?"

Kinoko gently shook her head in the negative as she looked up at her boyfriend. "No, I was feeling a little unwell, so I was sleeping all day."

"I also felt a bit unwell," Eunice remarked, "Also I could hear that it was getting really noisy down here. I didn't really want to come down and be exposed to all of that. I only came down because Kinoko got me and had me go with her to check out what was going on, but I didn't go without getting my headphones first in case the noise was too much for me."

The boys all understood where Kinoko and Eunice were both coming from. As a matter of fact, Tenya looked over where the music system had been set up by the girls. "If the music strikes you as too loud, I'm certain that the other girls will understand and agree to turn it down to a level that doesn't make you feel all that uncomfortable," the class 1-A rep said to his girlfriend. Eunice gave a small but cute and appreciative smile as she looked up at Tenya. The sight of Eunice smiling like that made Tenya light up a bit, and some of the boys who saw the glasses-wearing boy blush had a bit of an amused laugh.

* * *

After they left the boys to their own devices, Kinoko and Eunice went over to where the girls were all chatting it up and trying to make Eri feel welcomed. "Hey Eri, are you feeling better after what happened?" Kinoko asked in a concerned tone, "I heard about it, and I for one still can't believe that it even happened at all."

The little horned girl had a bit of an ashamed look on her face, but she did look a bit better than from before. "…Well it turns out that despite what happened, I can still get married," Eri replied, "So I figure that Asui-kun would still like me."

Tsuyu gave an amused chuckle, remembering from before that Eri has her heart set on Samidare. "Yes, yes, I'm certain that my little brother would still like you," Tsuyu remarked, "And hey, that reminds me that Samidare's eleventh birthday is this Friday. You figure that you'd be up to coming over and wishing Samidare a happy birthday, Eri?"

"Oh, he has a birthday coming soon?" Eri replied, hopping up and down out of excitement, "Do you think that I should get him a present?"

Nodding in the affirmative, Tsuyu replied, "Yes, and I actually have an idea on something that you can bring for him, if it will help you." Eri cheered happily, and the older girls were all happy to see that the little horned girl was cheering up after what had happened. Of course, Eri was caught up in the excitement of there being a birthday party coming up, a party that she could possibly go to, but that's just a detail.

After she had settled down from her bit of excitement just now, Eri said, "So there's something that I want to know. If I can still get married despite what happened to me, does that mean that I can also still become like the pretty ladies on TV and in movies?"

Some of the girls regarded Eri with a bit of confusion on their faces. "Pretty ladies like on TV and in movies…" Kinoko began in a mildly wondering tone, "…Oh! You mean an actress."

Nodding a few times in the affirmative, Eri said, "Yeah, that! They're really pretty and stuff, and I want to be just like them!"

"Oh, so you want to be an actress, do you now," Mina remarked, a hint of amusement in her tone as she scooped Eri up and held her, supporting the little horned girl with her left arm. Giving the tip of Eri's nose a gently tap, Mina said, "Well Eri, I think you'd make for a wonderful actress." To the other girls, Mina said, "Don't you all agree?" The other girls all agreed that Eri would be a wonderful actress. Some of them were surprised, but then again this was a very young girl who was going on about what she wanted to be when she grew up; it was just kiddy dreams.

Clapping her hands together, Eri said, "Oh! Kendo and Yaoyorozu both interned under that pretty snake-haired TV lady, so I bet that they can help me!"

Over where Itsuka stood next to Yaoyorozu, both of them wore mildly bemused expressions on their faces. "…Umm, I don't think that either Kendo or I would be exactly able to recommend Uwabami to you in good faith. Our one time under her was…not the best in the world."

"To be fair, we were interns under her and were both expecting to do some degree of hero work, even though she pretty much had us do only acting in a bunch of her commercials," Itsuka pointed out to her wealthy schoolmate, "Eri here wants specifically to get into acting, so I figure that she would be able to do a lot better under Uwabami." Yaoyorozu, after considering Itsuka's words, agreed that she had a point, and figured that Eri, if she really wanted to get into acting, would be able to do well under the snake-haired pro hero.

END, CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Author's notes;

And with that the Mineta-centric mini-arc has come to a conclusion. Mineta being expelled here will play a key role in the spin-off story that I had mentioned, as it actually requires him to be at his greatest possible low in order to really get the story going. Although Mineta is done here in 'A couple that will go down in legend', I am actually very far from done from using him. He will be back as the main character in an as of yet untitled story.

But that won't be for some time yet, as I would at the very least like to finish this arc then get a bit started on the following arc first. As for this arc, the main plot is continuing on, and the big bad 'Mysterious Benefactor' that has been threatening everyone from the background since the early to middle parts of this story's second arc is set to make an appearance soon; within the next three chapters actually, if all goes well and according to plan. When the identity of the Mysterious Benefactor is finally revealed, when he finally makes his presence on the scene known, life for all of the heroes-in-training over at U.A. will never be the same.


	57. Chapter 57

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter fifty-seven: The heart of the League of Villains

Izuku Midoriya was out on a date with his girlfriend Mitsuki Bakugo one well enough afternoon while all of the U.A. teachers were all distracted by the ongoing chaos that was the escaped villains from Tartarus case, as well as trying to root out the last of All for One's influence that was still out there in Japan, and the search to find the 'Mysterious Benefactor' that not only has their own mercenary force, but also backs the current incarnation of the League of Villains with financial support.

Izuku let out a troubled sigh as he and Mitsuki were at an arcade that she dragged him to because she heard her high score at the dancing game was recently beaten. "What's wrong, sweetness?" Mitsuki asked in a mildly concerned tone as, while she and Izuku were taking a break after she had regained the top spot on the dancing game scoreboard, she heard his troubled sigh. Looking up at his older girlfriend, Izuku showed that he looked as troubled as he sounded.

"…There's just so much going on right now, Mitsuki," the green-eyed boy remarked, his tone sounding a bit subdued, "I mean, this is just my _first_ year at U.A. The most I was worried about was trying to master my quirk and getting Kacchan's respect back so we could be friends prior to our falling out." The green-haired cinnamon roll held his arms out at length. "But look at what all has happened as of late. Massive attacks on the city, villains breaking out of Tartarus in huge droves, a classmate being expelled, and an unknown manipulator working behind the scenes in a bid to kill one classmate and the younger sibling of another."

The ashy-haired woman could tell that there was a lot on Izuku's mind. She didn't know too much, but she had a feeling that way more had been loaded onto Izuku's plate than what he should have been given for the entirety of his time at U.A., and all of that stuff not only had been given to him in just his first year, but that most of it had been piled on within recent events, ever since she and him first started going out. Some might even claim that with what all he had gone through, Izuku was already ready to graduate from U.A., all of the experiences he had giving him the equivalent of a standard three-year stint at Japan's top hero academy.

Imagine what all he would experience if he went through the rest of his time at U.A. as normal.

Mitsuki put an arm around Izuku's shoulders, drew him close to her in a gentle, comforting embrace. "…Izuku, you've gone through a hell of a lot more than anyone your age should have had to go through, and you still have so much time left at U.A.," Mitsuki began, "It's perfectly understandable that you'd be so overwhelmed by all of it." Mitsuki let go of Izuku, but then she moved to stand directly in front of him, before she put her hands on his shoulders, to firmly make sure that she had his attention.

"But you aren't alone in this. Katsuki isn't alone in this. None of you all at U.A. are alone in this. There are countless others who are all there to help see all of you through a patch that's rougher than what even some pro heroes go through in the whole of their careers. What you and everyone else needs to remember is that all you have to do is to reach out to us if you feel like you're about to blow up from trying to keep a lid on everything."

Izuku was a bit surprised to see Mitsuki being so gentle, so sympathetic. She was either usually loud, proud and brash, or she was angry and swearing to any and all deities that you'd care to mention for one reason or another. This side of Mitsuki…it was one of the reasons why Izuku decided to give going out with her in the first place a try, and to be quite honest he was actually rather enjoying his time with Kacchan's mother.

Despite how there was actually already someone who Izuku had wanted to ask out before he was scooped up by a drunk and depressed older woman.

Regardless, Izuku had someone in his life now, and he was by no means going to disregard that for any reason. Besides, Mitsuki was as they spoke trying to reassure him that there were plenty of others out there who would be there for not just him, but for everyone at U.A. who had more to deal with than they should have ever been given during their high school careers. Just another reason why the surprise relationship with Mitsuki, although it did end up catching the green-eyed boy by surprise, was a pleasant surprise all the same.

Izuku nodded once to Mitsuki in a gesture of thanks. "…You have a point, Mitsuki," Izuku remarked, "There's no need for any of us to have to deal with what all's been going on as of late on our own. Aizawa-sensei said something similar to me and all of my classmates, and even gave us reminders on how Hound Dog-sensei is an available counselor that we can always hit up if any of us feel overwhelmed by what all is happening."

"There we go, sweetness," Mitsuki remarked in a mildly amused, mildly proud tone as she gently wrapped her arms around Izuku and drew him into a hug, careful to not be as wild as she normally likes to be as she remembered that she and Izuku were in public, and she didn't want anyone giving her odd looks because she was hugging a teen boy in a way that would have taken his face and shoved right into her notable assets.

Mitsuki let Izuku go, and once they straightened themselves up, the proceeded to get back to having fun at the arcade. Mitsuki saw some nerdy looking kid from a middle school somewhere step up to the dancing game she had just reclaimed the high score at, and worried that said kid might steal her recently regained spot, she went up and challenged him to a dance off at the game, drawing a mildly confused but ultimately intrigued look out of the boy. Izuku, as he took a step back to watch what was going to unfold, hoped that Mitsuki wouldn't take the competition too seriously this time.

* * *

Dabi, the current leader of the new incarnation of the League of Villains, had called for all of the leading members for a meeting to discuss some setbacks that they had recently suffered as of late. The blue-flame villain let out a troubled sigh as he, with Spinner, Toga, Mr. Compress, Twice, Skeptic, and Kurogiri all stood around in Dabi's office at the location that the LoV was using as a temporary base until something better could be figured out.

"With Moonfish's arrest and re-capture, along with the death of Muscular, we've suffered more than a few set-backs," Dabi began, "Along with a few of our fodder members being arrested in the middle of whatever they were doing, be it jobs from the que set up by our Mysterious Benefactor, or random side crimes meant mainly to generate some income for us. Luckily, we've been able to recruit some new rank and file to compensate for the numbers we lost, but the hit to the command structure hasn't quite recovered."

Gesturing to Dabi, Spinner remarked, "To be quite honest, Muscular was a bit of a loose cannon, given his borderline insatiable bloodlust and need to kill others. I kind of wish that Mustard were available to bring back, as I personally would have chosen him over Muscular any day."

Dabi nodded in agreement with his second-in-command. "Yeah, at least he can take orders and respect authority." Looking at the rest of the LoV's command structure, Dabi remarked, "To make matters worse, because Muscular had the file from the job que detailing the hit that was taken out on that little Asui dude on his person when he was killed, the police and pro heroes are now aware that Uncle Pennybags has us do jobs for him. He's bound to be displeased with that."

The rest of the LoV's command structure all nodded in agreement with their leader, and Toga was about to speak up. But before the psychotic schoolgirl could get one word out, she was cut off by a knock at the door. Looking up and over, Dabi called out for whoever was on the other side of the door to come in. The door opened, and to the surprise of Dabi and the others, it was an agent of the Mysterious Benefactor. The well-dressed young adult man was carrying a laptop computer in his arms.

Making his way into the office as if he owned the place, the agent walked over to Dabi's desk that was in the room. Setting the laptop up, the agent said, "The boss is very displeased with what had happened involving the job file on that boy he wants dead getting out. He wishes to speak with all of you." Dabi, as well as the other villains, all looked a bit surprised, given that apparently they were going to be addressed by the Mysterious Benefactor himself.

The agent opened the laptop up, turned it on, got something set up, then turned the laptop around so that the screen was facing all that remained of the LoV's command structure. It was a blank white screen that had a large symbol that resembled the symbol for the Japanese yen, ¥, taking up a large portion of the space; the very large yen symbol also seemed rather on the fancy side of things, sort of like some manner of very fancy script.

"Sir, the leading members of the League can see the screen now," the agent said.

There was a bit of mild electronic buzzing before a voice came out from the laptop, distorted so that no one could tell who it was that was talking. "You all do realize that you are in a lot of trouble now, don't you?" said the Mysterious Benefactor, his tone clearly sounding displeased regardless of the distorting effect masking how he really sounded. "You allowed a file on one of the jobs I entrusted to your little group to get into the hands of the police and the pro heroes. If this somehow gets traced back to me, I will be _very_ upset."

"If I may," Mr. Compress spoke up, "The only reason why that file got out and into the wrong hands is because of a loose cannon member of the League who was too obsesses with sating his need to kill wasn't thinking clearly. The rest of us all know better than to let anything that's as sensitive as a job file get out in public where police and pro heroes can get their hands on it and try to root out who all is involved."

The distorted voice of the Mysterious Benefactor let out a mildly exasperated sigh before it continued with scolding the command structure of the LoV. "I hope for your sake and the sake of the rest of your little friends that what you say about the rest of you knowing better is the truth. Because I would hate to have to…make the necessary corrections…myself, Mr. Compress. You and the rest better toe the line from here on out. Do I make myself clear?"

The villains that were in the room all replied in the affirmative, knowing full well that the Mysterious Benefactor had the reach and the means to see that his will would be done, no matter what has to happen in the process. By no means did the remaining members of the LoV's command structure have any way to fight back against that effectively and not come out of the mess any worse for wear. More or less, they honestly had no choice in the matter but to serve as the Mysterious Benefactor's private firm of freelance agents.

"Now, my man who I had sent to you guys in order to set up the computer so that I can speak to you has files on the newest jobs that I want your little group to do for me," the voice of the Mysterious Benefactor said, "Included is an updated version of the job that calls for the death of that retarded child whose random temper tantrum out in public led to killing my wife's wood that day, which resulted in me not being able to…enjoy the rest of my day, so to speak. Are there any questions that any of you want to ask?"

"All of this cloak and dagger stuff you do to keep yourself concealed makes you really cool and mysterious sir," Twice remarked as he pointed both index fingers at the laptop's screen, "You've got to be the biggest coward that I've ever seen!"

"EXCUSE ME?!" bellowed the clearly outraged voice of the Mysterious Benefactor, "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME, YOU LITTLE SHIT?!"

Acting quickly, Dabi said in a clearly panicked manner, "You'll have to excuse Twice, sir! He always talks in a paradoxical manner like that, saying both a bad thing and a good thing about whoever he's addressing at the same time! It's just how his mind works!"

The distorted voice of the man who held the LoV in his hand clearly was growling in annoyed anger from his end of the conversation, wherever he was located. "…So he's that Twice fellow that my agents have told me about. Fine." Still sounding very unhappy with being insulted like that, the Mysterious Benefactor said, "Just get to work on the jobs I sent your way." With that, the sound from the laptop went *bztclick*, shutting off before the laptop turned off on its own.

After the laptop had shut off on its own, the agent that came took out a few vanilla folders and sat them on the desk before gathering up the laptop he had set up. Giving Twice a firm and very disappointed look, the agent remarked unsympathetically, "The boss is bound to not take your offence towards him just now very lightly."

"Like hell I'm afraid of that dirty son of a bitch," Twice replied, "Holy geez, I really am very sorry about all of this!"

The agent simply gave the paradoxical villain an unamused look, showing that he similarly had no appreciation for Twice. Without another word, the agent took his leave, muttering something to himself that none of the remaining members of the LoV's command structure was able to pick up on. After the agent left, most of the villains in the room let out a collective sigh of relief, those who sighed clearly relieved that they now had that breathing room.

Dabi went over to his desk to skim through all of the files, while also putting with them older files that were still in the job que. "…Okay, it looks like we have about ten jobs lined up in total," the blue-flame villain remarked, his tone making it clear that his spirits were down a bit due to the scare that he and the others had just now. Dabi looked up at his fellow leading members of the LoV, the look he gave them reminding all of them, without speaking, that it was really just nine jobs, as all of them agreed with him that the job concerning the sole Asui boy was pretty much off-limits.

The League of Villains still had a good bit of work to do all the same, though.

* * *

Elsewhere in the city, Izuku and Mitsuki were out and about, enjoying their time together. In that time, they ran into Izuku's mother Inko, who was out with Mitsuki's ex-husband Masaru; since the Bakugo couple had long since been divorced and Inko's husband Hisashi was killed while in the line of duty on his international spy job, both Inko and Masaru found themselves alone. They ran into each other by chance, and now are an item with one another, with Masaru even helping to keep Inko on her diet and exercise regiment that she had been set on ever since her latest scare with her diabetes.

Also talking to Inko and Masaru at the time that Izuku and Mitsuki ran into them were Mitsuki and Masaru's son Katsuki (aka Kacchan aka Bakugo) and Katsuki's girlfriend Pony. Apparently, Bakugo, while out with Pony, ran into his father, and the son and his girlfriend started talking to the father and his girlfriend. They were about part way through their conversation when the four of them were bumped into by Izuku and Mitsuki, and the two of them ended up joining, resulting in a mass group that totaled six persons in all.

Mitsuki, curious about what her son and her ex were talking about before she showed up, asked about it, and the answer that she and Izuku got actually surprised the both of them. "I was just telling dad about how Pony and I were taking a train ride back after we had our latest date," said Bakugo, "And Pony, rather embarrassed, had asked to sit on my lap because of how crowded the train was at the time." The slight nod from the half-American girl confirmed the story.

Casually waving a hand, Bakugo then went on, "After that, Pony went on about other cases where girls she knows had sat on the laps of their boyfriends. There was one bit about Shrooms sitting on Kirishima's lap, one where Cat Girl sat on Eye Bag's lap, one where Ear Plugs sat on Kaminari's lap, one where Ghost Girl sat-"

"Woah, woah, woah, hold on a second there Katsuki," Mitsuki interrupted, a mildly confused look on her face. With her son fully focusing on her, the ashy-haired woman said, "Eye Bags is about the same general height and build as you and Izuku, right?"

"Yeah."

"And his girlfriend Cat Girl weighs over four-hundred pounds."

"Yeah."

"And yet she sat on his lap at one point," Mitsuki went on. Shaking her head mildly out of confusion, Mitsuki said, "How in the name of fuck was Eye Bags not broken in half? He had so much sitting right on top of him, he could very well have been crushed into a viscous red paste!"

Letting out a troubled sigh, Izuku remarked, "Mitsuki, there's no need to worry about the physical well being of Shinso. He can handle himself."

Mitsuki, still a bit worried about how a boy can handle a girl well over twice his weight sitting right on his lap, shrugged it off with a mildly unsure look. The unsure look went away after a while when Mitsuki, with a look of sudden realization mixed with getting an idea, appeared on her face. Turning to regard Izuku, the ashy-haired woman said, "Hey, babe! I just had an idea! Why don't I try sitting on your lap, since all the girls are cuddling with their baes like that?"

"Not in public, Mitsuki," Masaru remarked to his ex-wife in a dry, mildly exasperated tone, "You are a little more than double Izuku's age, and some people may object to the sight."

Mitsuki crossed her arms over her chest, wore an annoyed scowl on her face as she hunched her shoulders a bit. "…Pfft, spoil sport."

* * *

Aside from the job that called for the death of Samidare, Dabi saw to it that all available jobs in the que that were lined up by the Mysterious Benefactor were completed. As a matter of fact, Dabi himself, taking Spinner and Toga with him, completed the standing job of harassing the construction company owned by Mr. Uraraka; out of a lingering sense of guilt all of them shared ever since they did the job where they killed Mrs. Uraraka, Dabi, Spinner and Toga completed the job in such a way that minimized how much they did while still managing to get across the point that the Mysterious Benefactor wanted.

Just smashing the large front glass window at night while no one else was present, making a complete and total mess of the place what with tossing around random papers and turning over a few desks, and just to help sell the point, Dabi used his quirk to set a company truck that was parked outside on fire. Toga also stole a wrapped candy bar that she found in the fridge in the breakroom, but compared to everything else she and the boys did, taking the candy bar was pretty much of no real consequence.

Dabi, Spinner and Toga returned from their job, reaching the warehouse that the LoV was currently using as a base, and the three of them went into Dabi's office. When they got in there, they were surprised to find Kurogiri, reading a book as he sat in a chair on the one side of the room, waiting for them. Looking up from his book when he heard someone enter the office, the misty Nomu closed his book. "Ah, glad to see that you've returned, boss," Kurogiri greeted Dabi as he stood up, "I believe that you ought to be informed that Mr. Compress and Twice were both called for a special job that our mysterious financial supplier had lined up."

The blue-flame villain, arching a wry eyebrow out of confusion, crossed his arms as he regarded his advisor with a curious look. "A job that specifically called for two specific people?" Dabi asked, "That's a bit out of the norm. Whenever Uncle Pennybags has a job lined up for one of us to do, he just sends the details in a file to us and doesn't give a rat's ass who takes care of it."

"Why did he ask for Mr. Compress and Twice in particular?" Spinner asked, a serious look on his face as he addressed Kurogiri. There was a dreading feeling in the pit of the stomach of the lizardman villain, but he ignored it for the time being.

"Because this job entails meeting with the big man himself," Kurogiri replied, drawing surprised looks out of Dabi, Spinner and Toga. The misty Nomu nodded once in confirmation. "Yes, we all know that the big man wants as few people as possible to be in the know about what he looks like, so that explains Mr. Compress who already knows. As for Twice, well in all honesty I can't imagine why he'd ask for him. Oh, but before I forget."

Kurogiri turned to face, then approached, Toga. He reached into a pocket on the side of his vest and pulled something out of it. Kurogiri handed it over to Toga, prompting her to hold her hands out to receive it. To the psychotic schoolgirl's surprise, it was the very handkerchief she had used to wrap up the exposed part of Twice's face this one time when his mask ripped. When his mask had ripped, it sent him into a panicked state, and Toga wrapping up the exposed part helped to calm him back down.

"Twice had asked that I make sure that this handkerchief gets to you, miss Toga, as he said it belongs to you and that he wanted to make sure that it was returned in case he forgot to do so later," Kurogiri explained.

Toga, who looked genuinely touched, gently held the returned handkerchief close to her chest. "Aww, that is so sweet of him," Toga remarked, even blushing a little as she held the returned item that Kurogiri supplied.

"Well here's hoping that whatever that job is that our financial supplier had specifically called for Twice and Mr. Compress to do, they'll get back from it soon enough," Spinner remarked, "We still need to discuss how to handle the situation that's cropped up with one of the League's enforcers getting arrested and another one getting killed." The lizardman villain crossed his arms over his chest. "I mean, really. The last thing that we need right now is for the League to lose another one of its leading members."

* * *

If it wasn't for the fact that he was wearing his mask at the time, then the shocked, horrified look that was on Mr. Compress's face would have been clear as day. He stood in the abandoned warehouse, with a few of the Mysterious Benefactor's men standing on either side of him to make sure he didn't do anything to interfere, watching as Twice, who was strapped down to a metal work table to make sure he couldn't get away, was beaten bloody.

And by the Mysterious Benefactor himself, no less.

It was a bit of a whirlwind of events when Mr. Compress and Twice entered the warehouse on the edge of town. Agents of the Mysterious Benefactor surrounded them, threw a quirk-suppressing collar around Twice's neck so he couldn't use his quirk at all as at least six agents all aimed their guns at the two villains to make sure that neither of them fought back or resisted in any way. Twice was then led (i.e. dragged) over to the metal work table, forced to lay on it, and he was chained up so that he was bound, allowing whoever came across him to do to him as they wished with impunity.

And the person who took advantage of that was the Mysterious Benefactor himself; from the angle that he was watching his comrade Twice getting beaten, Mr. Compress was unable to see the Mysterious Benefactor's face. He could only see that man from behind, the financial supplier's jet black hair, slicked back, shaking a bit every so often as the man vengefully hit the bound Twice with a wooden baseball bat, striking him multiple times in the face, on the head and a few on the chest.

The horrific beating had gone on for at least five minutes, with not even one bit of that time being silent as the air was filled with the pained screams of Twice. Even after Twice eventually stopped making any manner of noise, the Mysterious Benefactor continued to beat on him with that wooden baseball bat. The truly horrific man only stopped when one of his agents got his attention. The Mysterious Benefactor stopped and waited as the agent who asked him to hold on checked the beaten and bound member of the League.

"He's dead, sir."

"Feh, good," the Mysterious Benefactor remarked, sounding darkly satisfied as he casually threw the bat he had used to the cement floor of the warehouse that everyone was in, leaving out a side door without the front of his person ever being seen. After the Mysterious Benefactor had left, one of the agents that was standing next to Mr. Compress, just so happening to be the very agent who was by the LoV's base earlier with that laptop so that the Mysterious Employed would speak to them, turned to regard the dapperly dressed villain.

The agent, standing right next to Mr. Compress on the villain's right but turned to face the opposite direction, reached over with his right hand and patted Mr. Compress on the shoulder, keeping his hand on the villain's shoulder with the last pat. "No matter the reason for it, no manner of disrespect towards the boss is _ever_ permitted," the agent said, "Do well to remember that, and make sure to inform all of your little friends in the League of Villains of what they will face as consequence for stepping even one toe out of line."

Mr. Compress, horrified to his very core, couldn't help but shudder a bit as the agent, as well as all others, left the warehouse, leaving the dapperly dressed villain alone with nothing and no one as company, save for the beaten, broken, bloody body of Twice. Mr. Compress wanted to cry, to scream, to let out all that he felt as he and he alone saw the end of one of the greatest persons that the League of Villains, regardless of incarnation, had ever known.

But he couldn't. He was simply too shocked to even do anything for at least thirty minutes as he stood there. Mr. Compress felt as if the world had lost just a little bit more of its light, a grand injustice snuffing out one of the greatest children that the world had ever known. But this was the life that the League of Villains found itself in now; firmly and inescapably in the palm of a large and powerful influence that actually eclipsed that of the late Shigaraki's sensei, the true original big boss of the League of Villains.

When he finally regained his sense of self, Mr. Compress walked over to where his late friend laid bound to the metal work table. He undid the locks and chains, undid the quirk-suppressing collar that had made Twice helpless. Using his quirk, Mr. Compress sealed Twice's body up in a small marble and tucked it safely away in a pocket on the inside of his long coat that we wore. No manner of service was done for the late Muscular, as his body couldn't be recovered by the League, and more than likely Dabi wouldn't have cared much about disposing of the remains of the loose cannon villain anyway, beyond hoisting Muscular's body into a dumpster before he set the contents of said dumpster on fire.

But Twice would get better. His remains were recovered, and unlike with Muscular, Twice was actually respected (as well as cared about) rather than just tolerated. Mr. Compress would carry out the grim task of explaining to the others what had happened, what their current situation was now, and what they had to do in order to keep from meeting a similar fate. He also figured that Dabi would agree to the idea of doing some manner of ceremony to dispose of Twice's body, to give the paradoxical villain a decent, respectable send-off. The dapperly dressed villain, stopping at a door that would lead out of the warehouse, gently patted the area of his coat that covered the marble that held the remains of the best of them.

Mr. Compress let out a resigned, somber sigh. "…I am so sorry, my friend…"

END, CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

Author's notes;

This chapter, although I know that there will be some out there who did not like what happened, was necessary to help set the mood for what exactly the Mysterious Benefactor is like. And this isn't even the worst that will happen because the MB can't stand even one mar to his enormous ego. This is also the beginning of a major turning point in this arc, if not the story as a whole, as things will be amping up starting from here.

Anyway, the next chapter will see one of the worst things, if not _the _worst thing, to happen yet here in 'A couple that will go down in legend'. Giving all of you fair warning now.


	58. Chapter 58

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter fifty-eight: Botched Birthday

A large and mostly rectangular pile of firewood and kindling had been set up along a shore located next to a wooded area. It was three feet tall by six and a half feet long and two feet wide. Laying on top of the pile of wood was the body of Twice, who had been executed by the Mysterious Benefactor who supplied the League of Villains financially. Standing a safe distance away from where their dead comrade and friend laid were the remaining members of the League of Villain's command structure; Dabi, Spinner, Toga, Kurogiri, Mr. Compress and Skeptic.

Dabi, with a somber look on his face, approached the pile of kindling that Twice's remains laid on. Reaching out with his right hand, Dabi cast some of his blue flames to ignite the wood, setting it ablaze as the funeral pyre proceeded to roar to life. The blue-flame villain stepped back and rejoined his fellows. All of them were upset, heartbroken even, as they had to give this send off to one of their own.

Toga was crying her eyes out, as she had been rather close to the late Twice. Spinner, his expression somber and grim, merely stood there stoically as tears slowly ran down the sides of his green, scaly face. The only dry eyes at the funeral pyre were those of Dabi, but he looked just as grim and stoic as all of the other guys. As he and the others all watched the blue flames of the pyre consume the wood and the dead, Dabi perked up when he heard the sniffly words of Toga call out to him.

"H-Hey, why aren't y c-c-crying, Dabi?" the psychotic schoolgirl asked through her tears.

Dabi turned to look back at the pyre, gave off a resigned sigh. "…My tear ducts were damaged when I suffered the burns that you see on my face." The blue-flame villain gave a gentle shake of his head. "I can't cry, even if I wanted to. And trust me, I _want to_ cry right now."

"I still can't believe that Twice was beaten to death by our financial supplier and his men," said Kurogiri in a troubled, somber tone, "And all just because how Twice, due to his way of being, was unable to help what he said sometimes." The misty Nomu gently shook the mass of black mist that made up what his head, as if conveying disappointment and regret. "The master, as well as Shigaraki, wouldn't have stood for this." Kurogiri turned to look at Mr. Compress, who stood on his right. "You know who our financial supplier is, and yet you cannot say who he is."

In response, Mr. Compress knelt down and reached for his left pants leg. He pulled it up, then pulled down a sock that he was wearing, revealing some manner of intricate tattoo that was pitch black in color. "…One of the Mysterious Benefactor's men has a quirk that allows him to place marks like these on others," the dapperly dressed villain explained, "If the mark is activated, then the person with the mark is completely paralyzed, left helpless until the paralysis wears off."

He pulled his sock back up then let his pants leg back down as he got back up. "Conditions are set upon the placing of these marks," Mr. Compress went on, "The condition that was set on me as I got my mark was that if I deliberately try to let others know who the Mysterious Benefactor is, it would activate before I could even do anything to reveal what I know. I even have to be careful with what I write in my personal journal, give that it's possible for someone to find out that way what I know about the Mysterious Benefactor's identity."

Dabi and the others, all of whom turned to regard Mr. Compress as he explained himself, all turned back to look at the funeral pyre. "…Well fuck, ain't this all sunshine and lollipops," the blue-flame villain scoffed bitterly, "Not only did we lose Twice, but the one person that we know of who could tell us is cursed so that he can't do anything that would reveal what he knows." He gently shook his head out of disgust and shame. "To top it all off, even though I want to do so right now because I just lost a comrade and friend, I can't cry."

"Then I'll cry for you."

Dabi stopped short when he and the others who were throwing the pyre funeral for Twice all heard a gruff male voice call out to all of them. The villains all turned in the direction that they heard the man call from, and when they did, all six of them were surprised to see that it was, of all people, Stain the Hero Killer, the last of the great villains that had escaped from Tartarus prison. Stain was fully dressed in his usual outfit, and was also fully equipped with all of his various weapons, including the new katana that had been supplied to him after he had been let out during the escape.

A single tear slowly ran down the right side of the Hero Killer's face as he walked up to the remains of the League of Villains' command structure. "In addition to continuing my work of eliminating fake heroes from society, I've been secretly following what all you League of Villains lot have been up to ever since you fell into the pocket of that Mysterious Benefactor fellow," Stain explained, "Ever since I had gotten out of Tartarus. But then again, the man that gave me my new katana works for the man who had put you all in his pocket."

Stain proceeded to stand on the one far end of the line of villains that were watching Twice's funeral pyre burn. "…I'm going to be honest, what that bastard is doing makes me sick to my stomach, more so than any fake hero that I ever had the pleasure to kill. When I'm not busy killing off the fakes that clog up society, I'm trying to track down any bit of information that I can get my hands that would lead me to the answers that I seek." A few more tears ran down the sides of the Hero Killer's face.

"I have a few leads, but they require a level of stealth to follow that I can only manage alone," Stain remarked, "I want some way of being able to contact you League of Villains lot if I get ahold of something, because I'm getting the feeling that this is something that not even I can take on single-handedly."

Dabi proceeded to supply Stain with a number that he can call him at if anything came up. "Thanks," Stain replied, turning to leave the funeral on the beach. About a dozen feet away, Stain stopped, turned his head to look out over the ocean. "…You guys chose a nice time and location to have the funeral for your friend. The beach at sunset."

Toga sniffled a bit as she spoke through her crying. "Twice always said that, if he were to ever die, he's want a service at sunset, on a beach located near the woods."

The Hero Killer gave an approving nod. "He had good tastes. I'll be in touch. Oh, today's Thursday, right?" The villains all confirmed that it was indeed Thursday, then after he thanked them for filling him in, Stain left without saying another word, leaving the remains of the LoV's command structure behind him.

Dabi and the others, still surprised that the inspiration behind the formation of the original true League of Villains had come to the funeral of one of their own, all turned back to look at the pyre that was still consuming Twice. All six of them cursed their luck, cursed the Mysterious Benefactor who had them in the palm of his hand. Dabi, Spinner and Toga in particular all felt that they wanted to do something, but they were all actually too afraid to do so. But all three of them felt that, if their puppet-master pushed them seriously one more time, they would all collectively say 'fuck it' and proceed to work to do whatever it would take to bring that man down once and for all.

But they were all afraid of what that final theoretical push would be.

* * *

The following day, everyone in the city as a whole woke up to a pleasant enough Friday morning. Among those waking up to the day was the Asui family. Beru was in the middle of cooking something at the stove for breakfast, while her husband Ganma and youngest child Satsuki were sitting at the table, Ganma drinking from a mug of coffee while reading the paper, and Sastuki eating a breakfast that was just two toaster waffles (plus syrup) heated up.

"Today is going to be one of the most awesome days ever!" Satsuki declared, "Big sis's school is even going to let big sis come back home so she can have fun too!"

The Asui parents both chuckled in good nature at their youngest child's excitement for what the day had in store for them. "Well it's very nice to see that you're excited for your older brother's eleventh birthday today, sweetie," Ganma remarked in a good-natured amused tone, reaching over to gently ruffle the top of his youngest child's head.

"Speaking of the birthday boy, is he still asleep?" Beru asked, "Satsuki, can you be a dear and go gently-" The frog-like woman was cut off when Satsuki, too excited to wait, got up and ran right out of the dining room. "…I hope that she heard me say 'gently'," Beru remarked dryly.

…

Samidare was laying asleep in his bed, covered by a comforter that had an image of Ryukyu's dragon form on it. A true fan of the Dragoon Hero, Samidare had a few posters of Ryukyu on the walls in his room, as well as a few action figures of her on his bookshelf; there were a few figures of her in her regular form, and a big one of her in her dragon form. Samidare was even holding a plushy of Ryukyu's dragon form as he slept, and there was a squishmallow plushy of her right next to his pillows, opposite of the side Samidare was facing as he laid in bed.

It was true what was said; Samidare idolized Ryukyu the same way Izuku idolized All Might.

The door to Samidare's bedroom opened rather quickly, and Satsuki dashed in, as if she had an entire bag of Mexican jumping beans lodged firmly right up her butt. "You're turning eleven years old today, Samidare!" the youngest Asui sibling cheered excitedly as loud as she could, "You need to get up now so you can celebrate your birth-" Satsuki was cut off when her older brother, having woken up due to her coming in and screaming like that, proceeded to freak out, not only because of how sudden the intrusion was, but also because of just how loud his little sister was being.

Ganma appeared in the doorway a few seconds after Satsuki had started loudly cheering, having had to dash from the dining room when he heard what was going on. With a firm, disappointed look on his face, the toad-like man scolded his youngest as he ordered her out of Samidare's room. Ashamed and scolded, Satsuki turned around and quietly left. Samidare was still crying a bit, so Ganma sat down next to him and tried to get him to calm down, which worked after about fifteen seconds or so.

Giving his son a gentle pat on the back, Ganma said in an understanding tone, "Sorry that your little sister gave you a fright just now, my boy. She's just excited is all because today is a really big day for you." Samidare looked up at his father, blankly and dryly, in silence. The toad-like man, understanding of the fact that his son works a little bit differently than other kids his age, gave off a bit of a chuckle as he gave the birthday boy another gentle pat on the back.

"Well you ought to get dressed now," Ganma remarked as he got up from where he sat on the edge of his son's bed. Nodding once, Samidare got up and proceeded to take his sleep shirt off at about the same time his father left the room, closing the door behind him. Ganma made his way back into the dining room, where Beru was giving Satsuki a disappointed look. "You better say sorry to your brother when he's dressed and out here, young lady," Ganma said in a firm tone, to which Satsuki nodded once obediently.

Despite the mildly bumpy start to the day, things for the Asuis were still pretty good. After the kids ate, Ganma took off for work while Beru hurried Satsuki and Samidare through getting ready to go to school. Once they both had their socks and shoes on, the two younger Asui kids followed their mom out of the house. Beru got them loaded up into her car (she and Ganma can now easily afford two cars thanks to all of the boosts their income had seen in recent times) and before long drove off to take them to school.

Beru actually had to make two stops here; one saw her drop Satsuki off at her elementary school, and the other saw the frog-like woman take Samidare to the autistic children's academy. Beru took her son inside, where they were greeted by two of the women who worked there. "Oh, I got it that a certain someone is having his special day today," the first woman said in a knowing tone as she gave off a warm, friendly smile. After looking up at her blankly and dryly in silence for a few seconds, Samidare nodded in the affirmative, giving off a likewise affirmative hum.

"We have a little something special planned here for Samidare today," the other woman said to Beru, "I hope you don't mind if we celebrate a bit."

"Oh, I don't mind at all," Beru replied, amused, as well as a little touched, that the staff at the academy were going the distance just to give her son a good day. Beru waved good-bye and told Samidare that she'd be back later to pick him up.

After Beru had left, the first woman said as she looked down to Samidare, "So Samidare, would you be in the mood for a cup-" The woman stopped short as she saw Samidare take his backpack off, set it down on the ground, and unzip it. Both of the women could see that the sole Asui boy had a plushy of some kind inside before Samidare zipped his backpack back up, put it back on, and looked up at the two women again. "…We have cupcakes," the first woman said.

"Cookies and cream?" Samidare asked, a curious look on his face.

The two women both chuckled lightly. "The cupcakes themselves are cookies and cream flavored, yes. Don't worry, we know you like cookies and cream flavor best." With a hint of amusement in her eyes, the second woman went on, "And get this; the frosting is also cookies and cream flavored." Upon hearing what flavor the icing on the cupcakes were, Samidare's normally dry, monotone expression gained a bit of excitement to it; the two women both could have sworn that they even saw a bit of an excited twinkle in the Asui boy's eye that wasn't obscured by his bangs.

Yeah, they knew that Samidare was going to enjoy what they arranged for him.

* * *

Back at the Asui residence, Beru arrived just in time to also catch her eldest child, Tsuyu, arriving. Accompanying Tsuyu was her boyfriend Tokoyami, as well as their classmates Izuku, Uraraka, Tenya and Todoroki. Additionally, all six U.A. students were clearly carrying stuff for a potential birthday party. "The school actually gave everyone the day off, surprisingly enough," Tsuyu informed her mother, "Something about a lead in various cases that related to the prison break out of Tartarus and trying to round up the last of the League of Villains." Holding a hand over her chin, Tsuyu remarked, "I think that I heard Aizawa-sensei say something about the remains of a funeral pyre being found on the shore of a beach located right next to a wooded area a couple of miles south from U.A.?"

Beru did not quite know what to make of that, mostly because she was confused by it, but she shrugged it off anyway. "Well I suppose that this means you just have more time to help me get the birthday party set up for Samidare," Beru remarked, "And I hope your friends here can help as well, Tsuyu."

All of Tsuyu's friends nodded in the affirmative. "That's part of why we all came here, ma'am," Tokoyami remarked, "We figure that it's the least he deserves given what all good he's done for so many people as of late."

"Not to mention how he needs the break, given that he's been threatened," Tsuyu pointed out, making her mother nod in understanding. The Asui matriarch thought that her heart would literally explode when she was told that the same group that had tried to murder Tsuyu's friend Uraraka a few times was now targeting Samidare as well for some unknown reason. She had no idea why someone would target her son, of all people.

What could the now eleven-year-old boy have done to have earned such scorn?

* * *

Over at the autistic children's academy, some of the kids were in a literature skill class when the door leading into the classroom opened, catching the attention of the woman teaching the class. Another woman who worked at the academy gestured for the teacher to come over to her, and then whispered something to her. The teacher lit up a bit out of excitement, then turned around to look at the class. Samidare in particular, as he was in the class.

"Hey Samidare, can you come over here?" the teacher asked, a look of amusement clear on her face. The sole Asui boy nodded and proceeded to go over. Entering the hallway with the teacher and the other lady that worked at the academy, Samidare saw that two well-dressed men in black business suits were there. Gesturing to the two men, the teacher said to her student, "Samidare, these men are employees over at Ryukyu's hero agency, and they came here to see you!"

Samidare looked up at the two men, a clearly excited look on his face. "You two misters both work for Ryukyu?" the sole Asui boy asked, "Wow, I didn't know that there were men who worked over at Ryukyu's hero agency as regular employees. The only guys who work out of Ryukyu's hero agency are a few male sidekicks that she scouted herself, and the both of you look like you would only do office work for her."

"We're actually very recent hires, to be honest," the first man replied, a bit of an embarrassed look on his face, "But anyway, we were told that today's your birthday. Is that true?"

Samidare nodded in the affirmative. "Yes, today is my eleventh birthday. I'm technically still ten right now, given that back when I was born, the time was eight-thirty-two PM. That's what my mom told me about when I was born." Both men seemed a bit dry in expression, not expecting the boy to have a tendency to go on for a bit if he was talking about something that had some degree of interest for him.

The two men nonetheless both nodded along with this. "Yes, well anyway, we were both sent to pick you up, as Ryukyu told us that she wanted to do something special for you today. I believe that she had said something about getting a picture taken with you, and then autographing it for you?"

Upon being told that his favorite pro hero wanted to do an awesome thing with him for his birthday, Samidare got really excited. In fact, Samidare was so excited that he proceed to hop up and down while he flapped his hands. The sight apparently confused the two men, but the teacher and the other woman both explained to the two men that it's something that the sole Asui boy does sometimes when he gets really happy and excited.

After Samidare settled down enough, the two men said that they would take him right over to Ryukyu's agency so that he could see his favorite pro hero, but Samidare said that he wanted to get his stuff from the classroom first. The two men agreed, as they wanted Samidare to be as willing to work with them as possible. Once Samidare was ready to go, the two men said good-bye to the teacher and the other woman as they took off with the sole Asui boy.

Outside of the academy, the men got Samidare into the back of a limo that they came in; the first man got into the front passenger seat while the second got into the back with Samidare to keep an eye on him. There was a window that could be lowered that separated the driver and front passenger seat from the rest of the inside of the limo, so it was one of those really fancy limos as far as Samidare could tell. Samidare thought that Ryukyu must really be the most awesome pro hero ever, if she was doing all of this just to make sure he had a happy birthday.

With the doors closed and everyone buckled up, the limo pulled away and took off. As Samidare was slowly kicking his legs back and forth, the driver of the limo and the first man that went into the Autistic children's academy were having a bit of a conversation. A conversation that, if one were to listen in on it, they would be clued in on the fact that what all was _really_ going on was not as it would at first appear.

"Dude, all that we had to do was tell those idiots who run the retarded kids school that we worked for the Dragoon Hero, and they instantly trusted whatever we told them," the first man laughed, "We didn't even need to show them the fake ID cards that we made! They show us right to the brat and basically handed him over to us on a silver platter! The idiot boy even came along with us willingly all because we told him that Ryukyu would take a picture with him!"

"Wait, so scooping up the kid who angered the boss was that easy?" the limo driver asked, his expression a mix of surprise and mild confusion.

Nodding a few times in the affirmative, the first man said, "Fuck yeah it was! Now let's get the retarded bastard over to the warehouse so he can be made to pay for getting on the boss's bad side." The limo driver nodded in agreement, and proceeded to make a turn that, unbeknownst to the sole Asui boy, would lead to something that was pretty much the exact opposite of what he had been led to expect.

* * *

Back over at the Asui residence, the six U.A. students were setting up a few long folding tables in the backyard, with the boys handling most of the big work while Tsuyu got out the table cloths out and Uraraka set up a few folding chairs. "So wait," Todoroki began, "Who all will be coming to the party for Tsuyu's little brother again?"

"Well it won't be too big of a party, given that going as all out as possible might result in Samidare getting overwhelmed," Tokoyami proceeded to explain, "But all of the Asuis will be there, as well as both myself and Artemis given that Samidare's familiar with both of us. I believe that Eri will also be coming, as will that Kota boy who Izuku saved during the attack at the training camp. Oh!" A look of remembrance appeared on the raven-headed boy's face as he added, "Nejire-sempai will also be coming to the party, given that she's going to be introducing-"

Tokoyami was cut off when he and everyone else in the backyard heard something big fly overhead. Looking up, they saw Ryukyu in her dragon form fly over the Asui residence before she circled around and landed in front of the house. The six first years also saw Nejire flying alongside next to the Dragoon Hero, as her quirk allowed her the ability to fly to an extent. All six of the U.A. students dropped what they were doing to go see what was going on.

They all ran for the front door even as they heard the doorbell get rung. It was Tsuyu who answered the door, and right away she and the others saw Ryukyu and Nejire standing there, both with worried looks on their faces. "Tsuyu, are either of your parents home right now?" was the first thing that Ryukyu asked, looking both a bit rattled and very serious.

Right away, all of the present U.A. first years could tell something was up. "…No, Ryukyu-sensei," the frog-like girl replied, "My dad's at work, and my mom's gone to pick up the cake that she ordered form the bakery for Samidare's birthday party today. Why, what's going on?"

"Hoo boy, how to put this," Nejire began, unsure how to tell her junior student the news that had to be delivered, "Yeah, we just got word that your little brother's been kidnapped right from the academy he has classes at."

"MY LITTLE BROTHER'S BEEN KIDNAPPED?!" Tsuyu exclaimed at the top of her lungs, clearly freaking out. Similarly, all of Tsuyu's friends were likewise alarmed that the sole Asui boy had been spirited away from his school.

Nodding in grim confirmation, Ryukyu replied, "I'm afraid so, Tsuyu. I figured out what had happened when I got a call from the head of the academy, who thanked me for arranging some special meet and greet where I would let Samidare get a picture taken with me, as well as sending two men who do office work at my agency to pick Samidare up in a limo. The thing is that the only two men I employ at my agency are sidekicks. I have no men doing office work. Also, I never send limos."

"I was with Ryukyu at the time, so she took me along to go question the staff at the academy," Nejire went on, "After getting a description of the two men from the staff who worked there, Ryukyu told them that they not only don't work at her agency, she in fact had never met either of them in her life." The sole girl of the Big Three gave her junior student a guilty look. "I'm really sorry that something like this happened."

As Tsuyu began to freak out, the other U.A. first years turned to look at both their sempai and the Dragoon Hero. "Hang on a minute there, Ryukyu-sensei and Nejire-sempai," Izuku began, a curious look on his face, "Did those men really just up and take Samidare without any sort of issue? You'd think that the staff of the academy would at the very least question them."

Ryukyu gently shook her head, as if she were conveying some feeling of shame that she felt. "No, they didn't bother to question them at all. The academy's staff trusted whatever those two men told them because they said that they worked for me at my agency." She rubbed her forehead with her fingers as she moaned in a mildly guilty tone, "I can't believe that all of the support and aid that I gave to the academy had come to bite us in such a manner…"

"We need to get the word out about what had happened right away!" Tenya said firmly, "Every second that passes is another that Tsuyu's younger brother remains in danger!"

"Ryukyu already informed the police what had happened," Nejire explained, "And a few of your classmates and some of the students in class 1-B are already helping with the search. We were hoping that you all could help by joining the search."

"You think that I wouldn't help to find my kidnapped little brother kero?" Tsuyu replied, clearly tearing up already. After Ryukyu got her frog-esque intern to relax a bit, reassuring her that they will find her little brother, all of the student heroes took after the Dragoon Hero's lead and proceeded to go about joining the search to find the kidnapped Samidare, hoping that they would find him before something terrible could happen.

* * *

Following one of his leads, Stain the Hero Killer snuck along behind various large wooden crates outside of a few warehouses located in an undisclosed part of the city. He trailed a party that he knew full well was going to meet with the 'Mysterious Benefactor', and was a bit surprised to find what the meeting location was. Stain also saw the man that he silently followed to the very warehouse that he was sneaking along outside of.

He climbed a large stack of the wooden crates so that he could peer inside one of the storage warehouses from a window that was located a fair bit above the ground. Peering inside, the Hero Killer could see that it was a vast open empty space. He saw many men inside, one of which he identified as the man that he trailed to this location. Stain also saw that all of the men inside were armed with some manner of guns.

Stain scoffed a bit in annoyance; even he would be hard pressed to overcome a force of armed men like that alone, especially given the lack of cover he would have. As he looked as the number of men that were inside, he noticed that one of the men was not armed; that one man, in fact, was clearly well-dressed. Stain, his eyes widening in surprise, actually recognized who that man was, having tried and failed on one occasion before he took up the name of Stain to kill the recognized man.

To the Hero Killer's greater shock, what he saw all of the men inside of the warehouse doing sickened him to his stomach; they had set some rope up so that it was thrown over one of the beams that ran along above their heads, and they were _hanging a small child_, watching as the boy, his hands tied behind his back and his feet tied together at the ankles to keep him from being able to resist, struggled as he was being hung.

Despite how he wanted to kill every last man in the warehouse because they were seemingly actually _enjoying_ watching the boy hang, the man who Stain recognized looking like he was enjoying the sick show most of all, the Hero Killer knew he had to play things safely here. He took out a small handheld video camera and held it up so that he could film what all was going on inside the warehouse, making sure to get some clear shots of the man that he recognized.

"Those guys in the League of Villains are going to want to know about this," Stain muttered to himself as he recorded ample incriminating footage that not only confirmed who the Mysterious Benefactor was, but what his latest act of atrocity was.

* * *

It was late afternoon, just reaching sunset actually, when a team consisting of Aizawa, Hizashi, Tokoyami and Artemis followed a lead that the underground hero got from someone who simply identified himself as 'a fan of All Might's' that took them to a warehouse that was located in an undisclosed part of the city. Hizashi struggled with a door that led into the warehouse, and was about to blast it down with his quirk.

"The noise that will make will freak Samidare out, Hizashi-sensei," Tokoyami pointed out, "Let Artemis bust it open with his quirk." The exoskeletoned boy, using his quirk Martial Ki to boost his physical strength, gave the door a good shoulder ram that busted it off its hinges entirely, allowing him and the others to rush into the warehouse in the hopes that the lead that Aizawa got was accurate, and that they would be able to recover Samidare before anything bad could have happened to him.

…But something bad _did_ happen to the sole Asui boy.

To the shocked horror of Aizawa, Hizashi, Tokoyami and Artemis, they found Samidare hanging from a noose at least five feet off of the ground. The two teens rushed over to get Samidare down from there as Hizashi immediately called for police and an ambulance. Aizawa rushed over to where the boys had just gotten Samidare down and were undoing the ropes on him. After he got the noose around Samidare's neck off, Aizawa checked for a pulse, trembling slightly as he was fearing the worse.

The underground hero let off a grim, resigned sigh, gently shaking his head as he stood back up from where he was kneeling down to check for a pulse from Samidare. Tokoyami and Artemis both looked up at the U.A. teacher, their eyes widening with shock and disbelief as they were both able to put two and two together in their heads. "You…you cannot be serious, Aizawa-sensei," Artemis swore, his voice barely above a whisper.

"I'm afraid so, Norio and Tokoyami," Aizawa replied, guilt clear in his tone. He gave off a troubled sigh as he said, "Fuck. There is no way that Asui and her family will take this well. I mean, how can anyone tell a family that they lost their only son and brother?" Pounding a fist into the palm of his hand, Aizawa swore, "Damn it. If only there were a few more pro heroes available to help with the search. But too many have been diverted to the efforts of rooting out the last of All for One's influence that's still out there, as well as find and recapture all of the prisoners that escaped from Tartarus. The Commission even had to call in help from the United States because of-"

"Hang on a minute there, sensei." Aizawa was cut off when Tokoyami stood up, with Artemis following along. As Aizawa was joined by Hizashi, Tokoyami said, "What you said just now gave me an idea. The Commission called in help from the United States to help with what all is going on right now with the villains, right?"

Aizawa, as well as Hizashi, nodded in the affirmative. "That's right, Tokoyami," Aizawa replied, "But I'm not seeing where this is-"

"Who again was it that was called in from the United States?" Tokoyami went on, "It was Aggro Ace, the Samurai Hero Sengoku, who is a _Sacred Heritage_ _quirk user_." Gesturing to where Samidare was laying eerily still on the cold cement floor of the warehouse all of them were in, the raven-headed teen went on, "There was no manner of blindfold or sight-obscuring bag on him when we found him, so Samidare could have seen who it was that hung him to perish. All we need to do it try to keep what happened here under wraps as we continue the investigation, and call Sengoku over to bring Samidare back from the void."

The two U.A. teachers were both a bit wide-eyed with surprise. But as they thought about it, they agreed that it was actually a good idea; whoever it was that saw to it that Samidare died had no idea that the police and pro heroes could arrange to actually resurrect the sole Asui boy. Acting quickly, Aizawa pulled out his phone and proceeded to call up Aggro, hoping that he would be able to help out when the legendary power that he possessed was needed the most.

END, CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

Author's notes;

As harsh as it was, the Mysterious Benefactor got what he wanted when it came to killing an innocent boy for petty reasons. This is the worst thing he's done yet, but thankfully a few quick-thinking heroes are making arrangements to undo the harm that had been caused. Things are going to be coming to a head soon, either in the next chapter or the one after that, because soon enough, the man that's been terrorizing the good people of this setting since the second arc will be revealed at last.

But before all of that can occur, Aggro and Lincoln have an appointment with a certain doctor.


	59. Chapter 59

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter fifty-nine: Moves are made to bring down a titan, part one

Kyudai Garaki was running for safety, for freedom, for his life. By no means did he want the pro heroes that were closing in on him to capture him, as that would no doubt spell the true end for many things. His research that he had devoted a truly absurd amount of his extended life to, the legacy of his master All for One; all of that and more was set to be doomed to fade into obscurity all because of the ignorant, empty-minded fearful populace at large fearing any change to the status quo. That was why the doctor friend of the greatest villain Japan had ever seen was running.

At least he had some Nomus to buy him some time to escape, but due to a combination of how few Nomus he had left and ready to go (a good number were still growing in tubes), how many pro heroes had shown up, and the sheer suddenness of the arrival of the heroes (it truly was in every sense of the word a surprise attack), the time that was bought for the doctor was simply just not enough for him. In fact, when he rounded a corner in the building he was in, two of his remaining Nomus came out from along either side, ready to stop Kyudai's pursuers in their tracks and allow their creator more time to flee.

Both of said Nomus were slain in an instant.

One was slaughtered in hand-to-hand combat rather handily by the Rabbit Hero Mirko who, from what Kyudai was able to tell from the sound of it, actually sounded like she was enjoying herself a bit. As for the other Nomu that had been slain, all that Kyudai was able to tell was that it had been incinerated by a mass of fire. That on its own would have made Kyudai suspect that the current number one pro hero, the Flame Hero Endeavor, had been the one to vanquish one of the Nomu who Kyudai had created to be of service to his master.

But Kyudai, as he ran through the halls in his attempt to escape capture, could tell from the light that was coming off from behind him that the flames that consumed the one Nomu were not those of the Flame Hero. They were of a completely different color. There was also the fact that the doctor heard someone who was very clearly _not_ Endeavor shout at the top of his lungs, "Solar Flare!" Kyudai, as he rounded a corner in his continued attempt to flee capture by the pro heroes and their police allies, could have sworn he saw a flash of _golden_ flames.

The doctor friend of All for One was able to round that corner, and he was getting a moderate but fair distance away from his do-gooder pursuers. But suddenly, someone came running incredibly fast up along Kyudai's side. The doctor then felt something cut his left cheek, making him wince out of a mix of pain and surprise. After that, Kyudai saw what appeared to be a pre-teen boy in a mostly orange outfit jumping up in front of him in a sort of assassin pose, the bloodied blade of a bowie knife close to the boy's lips.

The boy licked the blood from the blade, and before Kyudai knew it, he had suddenly and fully locked up, paralyzed completely and unable to move. He fell over to the floor face first, but the boy ran up and caught him, setting him down gently on the floor to make sure he didn't hurt himself on accident. The doctor laid on the floor of that hallway front-side down when he heard the voice that called out earlier, "Excellent job in catching the doctor, Lincoln-kun."

"But what if this one is one of those fancy mud clones like the last three we encountered, Aggro-sensei?" the boy who caught Kyudai spoke up, sounding a bit worried.

"We'll just have to test it first, don't you think?" the voice that was identified to the doctor as Aggro-sensei spoke up.

Worried about getting hurt, Kyudai cried out in cowardly panic. "No, no, no! I'm the real Kyudai Garaki! There's no need to-"

*THWHACK*

"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

Aggro, taking out one of his two signature bokken, swung it right down against the back of the paralyzed doctor, eliciting a near earsplitting scream of pain out of the cowardly, pathetic man. Aggro gave him a narrow gaze of grim consideration as he pulled his bokken back. "…The bokken strikes that I used to destroy the ones that ended up being those weird mud clones were quite weaker than the bokken strike that I had used just now." The Samurai Hero slipped his bokken back into the cloth carrying case over his back as he and Lincoln were joined by a couple more pro heroes, "I'd say that we got us the real deal here, Lincoln-kun."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you all this time!" Kyudai cried out in pain. It wasn't just pain that the doctor cried out in; his master All for One was locked up down in the deepest reaches of Tartarus, and not even the recent prison break was enough to liberate him. All for One's successor, Shigaraki, was killed in battle well before any decent progress on his 'upgrade' could have been, all because of that idiot Re-Destro having been far too eager and impatient to see to the heroes being brought down to their knees.

There was so much that could have been done, so much to see to it that society was molded into the image of those who Kyudai had allied himself with. But now, now that all of his masters were either incarcerated forever or straight up dead, all of that was lost. The ignorant, fearful society that feared any change to the status quo that they had grown accustomed to was going to get what they wanted, that being everything staying just as they liked it. The doctor, and all of those on the side of evil, had just lost, fully and undeniably.

There was just one last true evil left out there. Not that Kyudai knew what that evil was, mind you.

…

"Wow, this is far beyond what all I would have imagine we'd find, Sengoku-san," Edgeshot remarked as he, with Yoroi Musha accompanying him, explored a lab room that Kyudai had kept before his capture at the hands of Aggro and Lincoln, the two of them following along behind the two Japanese pro heroes.

The Samurai Hero let out an impressed whistle. "Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with you on that one, Edgeshot. This is well beyond what I could have imagined, and I've seen the lab setups that Lincoln-kun's sister Lisa has back over in Royal Woods."

"Ah yes, I've actually heard of young miss Loud," Yoroi remarked, "From what I've gathered, she's an incredibly gifted genius that has made many breakthroughs in the scientific field, thanks in part to supposedly possessing a quirk that takes her already vast intelligence and boosts it to even further heights."

Lincoln nodded a few times in confirmation. "Yeah, my younger sister's got an intelligence-boosting quirk. She's now doing research into quirks."

"Well then hopefully she can help the Japanese government make heads and tails out of what all that doctor bastard has set up here," a pro hero remarked as he came walking over to the group of four. Getting the attention of Aggro and Lincoln, the pro hero said, "We're going to have to report what all we found here to the government and the commission, but I'm sure that they'd be agreeable to letting a scientist of a nation allied with Japan help our nation figure out what all that scientist bastard that was allied with All for One was up to here."

The two Royal woods natives both looked around the lab, turning around in place as they slowly looked around at everything. "…Yeah, Lisa's going to be like a kid in a candy store if she's given all of this stuff to work with in her lab," Lincoln remarked in a dry, knowing tone, "And doing all of that work to help the Japanese government will do wonders to strengthen relations between Japan and the United-"

"Sengoku!" a male voice, firm and authoritative, called out, cutting Lincoln off and making him and everyone else turn around to see who it was that had called out. As such, all of them saw Endeavor come jogging up to them.

The Samurai Hero gave Japan's current number one pro hero a wry, curious look. "Ah, you're the current number one ranked pro hero in Japan. The Flame Hero Endeavor."

Enji nodded once in the affirmative to the Sacred Heritage quirk user that stood before him. "I just received word that you're needed for a potential breakthrough in the case involving the siege of mercenaries that occurred over at U.A. High School some time ago," Endeavor remarked, "As well as all of the harassment that had been made against the Uraraka family."

Aggro nodded once in understanding before he held a hand over his chin, wearing a look of consideration on his face. "…I believe that the 'Mysterious Benefactor' personage who has been supposedly bankrolling a lot of villainous efforts here in Japan as of late has a firm hand dipped deep into all of those messes. I only know about the existence of that personage at all because of the investigation that I did with Eraserhead, Present Mic and two of their students while they were all over in Royal Woods on that international field trip, as we got the info from a man who brokered in information."

"Maybe we should try to meet up with Eraserhead and Present Mic, Aggro-sensei?" Lincoln suggested as he looked up at Aggro, "After all, they were there when you-"

"Eraserhead and Present Mic are already present at the hospital that you need to get going to for the breakthrough, Sengoku," Endeavor said to the Samurai Hero, cutting off the Assassin Hero in the process. Japan's current number one walked up to Aggro, placed a hand on his shoulder as he regarded him with a somber, mildly troubled look. "…You're needed to do what you had done for some of my son Shoto's schoolmates during the villain siege a while ago."

The Samurai Hero gave Endeavor an arched eyebrow as he looked at him. Aggro had a pretty good idea what was being implied here, so without hesitation he turned his attention to look down to regard his protégé. "Lincoln-kun, we need to get going to the hospital that Eraserhead and Present Mic are both waiting for me at." Lincoln nodded obediently, clearly ready to follow his sensei to wherever. Aggro then turned to look and Endeavor and told him that he was ready to go meet with the U.A. teachers as soon as possible.

Endeavor led the way, and Sengoku and Ezio went to go to the hospital to meet with their allies from U.A. at once.

* * *

Izuku, with Uraraka, Todoroki and Tenya running along behind him, ran to try to keep up with Tsuyu as the five of them ran through the front entry doors of the hospital in the city. Earlier in the day, unknown men that had claimed they work for Ryukyu, the pro hero who employed both Tsuyu and Uraraka, among others, as interns had been able to rather easily kidnap Tsuyu's little brother Samidare from the autistic children's academy where he has classes at. This had sparked a mass effort on the part of the heroes to try and find the boy.

Some eleventh birthday this had turned out to be for the sole Asui boy.

The group of five U.A. students rounded a corner as four of them tried to reach Tsuyu, who was pulling further ahead. Eventually, Izuku and the others were able to catch up to their frog-like classmate, but that was only because she was stopped when she ran into Tokoyami, another classmate in 1-A as well as the boyfriend of Tsuyu. Accompanying the raven-headed teen was Artemis Norio of class 1-B. "Tsuyu, Tsuyu, relax," Tokoyami said as he put his hands on Tsuyu's shoulders to get her to slow down.

"How can I relax, Fumikage?" Tsuyu asked, tears running down the sides of her face, "When you and Artemis called me and said that Samidare was here at the hospital, all sorts of-"

"There's no need to worry. Samidare is fine now."

Tsuyu stopped short and looked around with a look of mild confusion on her face. Similarly, Izuku, Uraraka, Todoroki and Tenya all looked around when they heard the familiar male voice call out to their frog-like classmate. Eventually, they spotted Aggro walking up to all of them, his protégé Lincoln following along behind. The Samurai Hero stopped when he reached everyone, crossing his arms over his chest as he wore a serious look.

Gesturing to Tsuyu, Aggro said in a serious tone, "Your little brother is recovering right now, Tsuyu. He's being tended to for some minor injuries related to the rope that was used to tie his wrists and ankles together so he couldn't struggle while he was being hanged."

"Samidare was hanged?!" Tsuyu nearly exclaimed, tears running even more freely down the sides of her face.

The Samurai Hero let out a troubled, knowing sigh. "…Yes. Samidare was initially dead when Aizawa, Hizashi, Tokoyami and Artemis found him in an abandoned warehouse, hanging from the noose that his killer had used." Tsuyu, upon being told that her little brother had died, chocked up so much that it sounded like she might have actually thrown up. "That's why your teachers called me in just now," Aggro went on, "I undid the efforts of whoever it was that saw to your little brother's death by casting Morning Sun on him."

"That's the name of Sengoku's resurrection technique," Tokoyami clarified to his classmates, "The move that he used to return both Hatsume and Kirishima back to life after they were killed during the villain siege on the city a while ago."

The five U.A. students that had rushed into the hospital all looked like they were an even mix of relieved and surprised. Tsuyu especially so as, while she was still tearing up, she was now no longer upset and crestfallen. Rather, she cried out of relief, out of joy. Her little brother was alive, and now safe and sound as he was recovering in the hospital. The frog-like girl ran right up to Aggro before she threw her arms around his body, hugging him tightly as she cried out of relief into his chest.

Aggro, holding his arms back just before they could have been pinned to his sides by Tsuyu's hugging, relaxed a bit as he gently patted the relieved U.A. student on her back. "…He will be needing some time to rest and recover here," Aggro pointed out, "Not to mention how the pro heroes and police are going to want to talk to him as soon as he's able to."

Tsuyu and the other U.A. students all perked up at that notion; it wasn't just the party that ran into the hospital just now, but also Tokoyami and Artemis. "The hell are you talking about, Sengoku?" Todoroki asked, "Tsuyu's little brother was killed, resurrected less than an hour after his death, and is now resting in the hospital here. Don't you think that questioning him while he's going through all of that is a bit much?"

Aggro turned his attention to regard the two-toned boy, giving him an understanding look. "I know that it's a bit much right now, but the pro heroes and police had reason to suspect that Samidare had seen the persons responsible for hanging him. It turns out that he did, and he already gave at least two descriptions on some of the men that he saw."

"There was no evidence that he was blindfolded while he was hanged," Tokoyami pointed out, "And likewise there was no evidence suggesting a bag or anything else that could have been used to block his sight was used. As such, he was able to see the men who had watched him hang."

The others who had arrived just now stopped short, looks of surprise on their faces. The pro heroes and police had descriptions of some of the men that were there watching Samidare hang. He could potentially give descriptions of more of who he saw watching him take his final breaths until Sengoku undid the efforts of those truly horrific men. Aggro let out a resigned sigh, getting everyone's attention again.

"Samidare is resting right now, but when he wakes up he'll be questioned again by the pro heroes and police for more descriptions." The Samurai Hero gave a gentle shake of his head. "He's still a bit rattled by what all has happened, so he may be a bit more nervous and hard to work with." Looking at the U.A. students, Aggro said, "We're still going to need to use the same police sketch artist, but if any of you have any idea on who else could be there, hopefully to make Samidare feel as relaxed and safe as possible, that would be a huge help."

"If I may." Aggro and everyone else turned to regard Tokoyami as he spoke up. "First off, considering the fact that he's autistic, Samidare may feel a bit too overwhelmed if there are too many people are in the room with him all at once, so keeping the number of persons to as much of a minimum as possible would be ideal. There's also the fact that a pro hero needs to be there, and also taking into account others to help make him feel safe." Tokoyami proceeded to list persons off of his fingertips as he said, "I think that a group of four persons consisting of the police sketch artist to represent the police and to draw suspects based on what Samidare says, Tsuyu and Mrs. Asui because they're his older sister and mother and thus they should make him feel safe, and Ryukyu as a pro hero plus the one who Samidare just so happens to admire more than any other."

Aggro considered the raven-headed teen's words, finding what he said to be a sound idea. "It'll have to be run by the persons managing keeping an eye on Samidare to make sure nothing bad happens to him while the police and pro heroes are still trying to gather evidence, but it sounds like a sound argument to me." Turning to look at Tsuyu, Aggro remarked, "Assuming that what your boyfriend here suggests can be applied, would you be willing to be there to be a comforting presence to your little brother?"

"What can stop me kero?" Tsuyu replied, wanting to go and see how her little brother was doing more than anything. Aggro, as well as Lincoln, chuckled a bit in a knowing tone, unsurprised in the least by Tsuyu's determination and dedication to her family. Things, despite how they've been dark for so long, were now looking like they were beginning to brighten up a little bit. All that needed to be done now was to do the necessary digging to find out the true identity of the man who had been terrorizing so many from the shadows for so long.

Little did the young heroes know that someone had done some of that digging for them.

* * *

Stain the Hero Killer, after calling the number he was supplied with by the command structure of the current incarnation of the League of Villains, was able to find their base. Arranging for a private meeting with Dabi and the others, the Hero Killer showed all of them the video recording that he was able to get. They saw who Stain suspected was the 'Mysterious Benefactor' who held the LoV in his pocket, saw what he and all of his armed men were doing in that warehouse.

"If it wasn't for the sheer number of men inside that were all armed with guns, I would have gone in and done what it took to save the boy," Stain remarked in a grim, mildly guilty tone as Dabi and the others were growing increasingly horrified as they watched the man suspected of being the 'Mysterious Benefactor' and all of his armed men watch as they saw a young boy that was being hung from that noose, watched as he struggled for the last bits of his life.

Dabi, Spinner and Toga were all especially horrified, as they recognized the boy they were seeing hang to death as Samidare Asui, one of the two young kids that they had somehow become friends with. Dabi and Spinner both looked a mix of disgusted and horrified while Toga, her tears flowing freely, covered her mouth with her hands as she wore a look on her face that was a mix of horrified and heartbroken. The psychotic schoolgirl even let out a few gasps as she and the others watched what they, for all they knew, had full reason to believe were Samidare's last moments.

Suddenly, Dabi became overcome with a strong feeling of righteous anger. The blue-flame villain stood up from where he was sitting at his desk in the office of the LoV's current base of operations. "…That's it. Fuck it." Pointing at the video that he and everyone else was seeing, Dabi swore, "That right there is the final fucking straw. I don't care if we end up getting the whole of the League destroyed because of it, but I am going to order a turn on that fucking son of a bitch that has played around with our lives." The other leading members of the LoV all cheered in agreement with their leader, Spinner and Toga especially so.

Stain actually gave an amused smirk. "…I'm glad to see that you all agree that the man is worse than every fake hero that I have ever killed combined. He before anyone else has to be taken down, and taken down hard."

"There's just one problem, though," Skeptic remarked, "How can we go about taking down out Mysterious Benefactor?" Gesturing to the video that Stain had just played for him and the rest of the LoV's command structure, the former MLA lieutenant said, "I mean, did any of you all not see who he is? No wonder he has the means to keep the whole of the League firmly in the palm of his hand. There's no way the whole of the League can take him on and last more than a few moments before he has his men wipe all of us out."

"Not to mention how some of the rank and file in the League are former mercenaries that worked for that man," Kurogiri pointed out, "Who's to say that they won't turn on us if we try to take on the very man who supplied us with a lot of our funding?"

As the command structure of the League wondered just how to go about their primary goal of taking down the very man who had allowed them to be able to continue on for as long as they have, they all looked over to Stain when he let out a darkly amused chuckle. "…I actually know just what to do. I know who has the power and resources that are all necessary to lead a charge to take that bastard down, even though I am loath to admit it." Shrugging once, the Hero Killer said as he patted his video camera, "We get this info to the pro heroes."

Dabi and the other villains all looked surprised at Stain over what he suggested, with some of them looking as they thought that Stain had gone mad. "I acknowledge that there are still a good number of fakes that illegitimately bear the title of hero. But there is no denying the fact that, if enough heroes, especially notably successful ones, get together and pool resources, power and influence, they can successfully lead a charge of their kind, plus some necessary police officers, to take that man down." He gave a grim look to all of the villains in the room with him. "It's the best bet that we've got."

The command structure of the LoV was silent for a few moments, until Spinner was the one who broke the silence by gesturing to the man that he respected above all others. "If you believe that our best bet to take down that man is to hand this video recording that you got over to the police and pro heroes, then I think we should go for it." Dabi and Toga, both realizing that their friend had a point, nodded in agreement with him. Likewise, Skeptic, Mr. Compress and Kurogiri all nodded in agreement with the lizardman villain.

"I'm glad to see that all of you are on the same page." Straightening up a bit, Stain went on, "However, due to how valuable this information is, we need to make sure it's delivered to the hands of a hero who actually deserves the title, as only such a person can be truly trusted with this. Therefore, I aim to get this video recording delivered to the hands of that green-haired boy, Izuku Midoriya, as he is one of the very few true heroes left outside of the retired All Might."

"We're going to get the recording to Midoriya?" Dabi asked, a curious and mildly confused look on his face. Shrugging out of confusion, the blue-flame villain continued, "How will we able to pull that one off?"

As she thought about it, Toga reached into the one pocket on her cardigan, pulling out the special ring that she had snuck onto U.A. grounds a while ago to steal under the impression that having it would make her just that much closer to Uraraka who, due to the way her mind worked, Toga viewed as one of her 'besties'. "…I have an idea."

TO BE CONTINUED…

END, CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

Author's notes;

The scene at the beginning was meant to serve mostly as clean-up of loose ends that relate to events from the series proper; with what I have in mind for this story, any and all possible issues that could arise from there have to be addressed and swept up. And who knows? I may be able to do a BNHA/Loud House crossover centered around Lisa Loud working with what all had been gathered from Kyudai's secret lab, including all of the vials that contained duplicated copies of various quirks. Won't that be exciting.

But aside from that, the main issue here is that evidence that has either already been gathered or is being gathered as we speak is building up, and soon the man behind the scenes since in the story for so long will soon be exposed. The pro heroes and their allies have a tough road ahead, but soon enough they will bring one of the most evil persons they had ever had to deal with out to face justice. Things will be getting interesting, especially in the next chapter. But then again, the next chapter will feature a surprise meeting at Uraraka's family's place.

Guess who all will be seen hanging out with Uraraka's dad when some U.A. students arrive to answer the call that they got.


	60. Chapter 60

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter sixty: Moves are made to bring down a titan, part two

Izuku was hanging out in the main area of Heights Alliance with Todoroki and Tenya, plus Uraraka and Tsuyu who they had invited over from the girls-only dorm building that had been built in recent events. The five of them were all going over what all that they knew about the ongoing case that, in recent events, had seen Tsuyu's little brother Samidare get dragged into things; things had gone rather badly for the sole Asui boy, and they would have been outright tragic if it wasn't for the fact that a powerful quirked hero from the United States was in Japan at the moment.

The green-eyed boy rubbed his forehead slowly with his fingers, a gesture that showed how utterly frustrated he was with how things were going for the pro heroes and police. "Ooh, I still can't believe that the police and pro heroes only have so little to go off of in the ongoing case," Izuku complained, "They only got a few rough sketches of what some involved men look like based off of what Samidare told them."

"I know, Izuku," Uraraka remarked, understanding how he was feeling, "I mean, according to what Tsuyu and I are hearing from Ryukyu-sensei, Japan is _this_ close to cleaning up all major threats to society. No more of the remains of influence from All Might's greatest nemesis, no more of that shady man from the shadows that's been threatening us ever since the field trip that we took where some assassins tried to kill me."

The others all nodded in agreement with their brown-haired classmate; sure, there will always be some minor villains here and there, and maybe even a new villain group later on down the line, but the big names at the moment are _so close_ to being swept up. When that occurs, the heroes and heroes-in-training could finally be able to enjoy at least a few years of general peace before the next big villain name pops up.

The heroes-in-training would especially enjoy that, as they're teenagers, and in the case of the 1-A and 1-B classes at U.A., have had to put up with more than most pro heroes tend to deal with in the whole of their careers. Sure, they're all still dedicated to becoming the next paragons of society, but they still have various needs and wants that come with being teenagers; they want to be able to enjoy hanging out, do schoolwork with_out_ a major villainous threat breathing down their necks, and overall just live their lives.

Something else that they also want is to be able to _enjoy romance_. Again, teenagers.

Clapping his hands together, Izuku got everyone who was sitting with him to turn and focus on him. "Don't worry everyone, I'm sure that the police and pro heroes will get everything cleaned up soon enough. What's more is that all of us here at U.A. are right there, ready and willing to help out, to do what we can to help bring-"

*RRRRRIIIIINNNNGG*

Izuku was cut off as he and everyone else in the group looked around, only to turn to look at Uraraka who, blushing with embarrassment, reached into her bag and pulled out a smartphone that was going off. "Heh, sorry everyone," the gravity girl apologized, "I think I'm getting a text from my dad right now."

"I wasn't aware that you had a smartphone now, Uraraka," Tenya remarked in a surprised and mildly curious tone, "I mean, you told us a few times before that-"

"My family's doing far better financially speaking now, remember?" Uraraka pointed out, looking up from her new smartphone to all of her friends that were with her, "Because of that commercial that everyone pitched in to help make. It drew a lot of attention to the construction company that my parents started together." A look of sad somberness crossed the gravity girl's face. "…And my father now runs alone."

Uraraka's friends all fell silent a bit, remembering that her mother had been murdered in cold blood a while ago, leaving Mr. Uraraka as a widower and Uraraka herself without a mother. Shaking away the doubt, Uraraka opened her phone and checked the texts her dad had sent her. Izuku was the first to notice the look of mildly baffled confusion on Uraraka's face as she went through all of the texts. She was probably confused by the sheer number of texts.

"Why…" Uraraka began, "…Why is my dad referring to me as 'Ura-chan' and his 'bestie'? That makes no sense. Huh, this one says to call him." Acting on that text, Uraraka called up her dad's number, waited for it a bit until she heard the other end pick up. "Dad?" Uraraka began, "What's up with all of the texts that you-"

"Sorry Ura-chan, but your dad's busy right now," a female voice replied, not only surprising Uraraka but setting a high degree of fear into her heart. The gravity girl recognized right away that the girl who was speaking was Himiko Toga, the psychotic schoolgirl villain. "Don't worry, Dabi, Spinner and I haven't done anything to your dad," Toga went on, "It's just that the three of us want to talk to Izu-kun because Stain wants us to deliver something to him on his behalf."

Seeing the look on Uraraka's face, Izuku asked, "Uraraka, what's wrong?"

Lowering her smartphone a bit, Uraraka looked over to the green-haired cinnamon roll. "That crazy girl villain who attacked me and Tsuyu at the training camp is with my dad right now." Izuku, Tsuyu, Todoroki and Tenya all immediately looked alarm. Gently shaking her head as she continued to wear a worried expression, Uraraka went on, "What's more is that she's with two other villains called Dabi and Spinner."

"Hello?" Toga's voice said from Uraraka's smartphone, "Ura-chan? Are you there? I'm serious, this is, like, really super important!"

Tenya gestured to Uraraka to go on ahead and continue speaking with Toga, while Izuku took out a notepad and a pen to write with. Holding the phone back up to the side of her head, Uraraka said, "So, umm, you said something about how the Hero Killer had asked you and your two friends to deliver something to Izuku." Uraraka's friends all stopped short at that notion, Izuku and Tenya most of all for varying reasons.

"Yeah, that's the important thing!" Toga said, "Stain was able to track down one of the agents who reports directly to the Mysterious Benefactor guy who helps fund the League of Villains, and follow him discreetly to a warehouse. Stain was able to record a short video clip of the guy and a bunch of his armed men watching as they…they…"

Uraraka heard the psychotic schoolgirl sniffle a bit, as if recalling a heartbreaking memory. "…The Mysterious Benefactor and his pals all watched as the sweetest little boy ever was hanged to death. I'm sorry Ura-chan, but Dabi, Spinner and I really felt like we were actually friends with that kid, as well as his little sister. I bet that you would like them if you ever got to know them."

The brown-haired girl had a look on her face that was a mix of surprise and confusion, although there was a hint of sincerely being touched as she was able to just tell that Toga was being very serious about how she cared about the kids, who Uraraka knew was Tsuyu's younger siblings. She wasn't quite sure about the idea of a trio of villains legitimately being friends with two kids, but the sincerity in Toga's tone made it clear that she was grieving over her belief that Samidare had passed away, dying at the hands of one of the most evil personages that any of the students at U.A. have ever had to deal with to date.

…Granted, Samidare was returned to life thanks to Sengoku resurrecting him, but the villains did not know that. Very few people are in the know about it, actually, given that Samidare's death was not reported, and he's being kept secured so that those who had sought out his demise were not aware that their efforts had been undone. A part of Uraraka actually wanted to tell Toga that Samidare was actually alive again, but she stopped short for two reasons; one, no one who knew was supposed to say anything about it, out of fear the info may get leaked to the wrong party.

Two, Toga mentioned that Stain had not only managed to get a video recording of Samidare's hanging, but said recording also showed who all was there watching it, with one of said persons being the very man who sought to do many evil things, with one of said things being multiple attempts on Uraraka's own life. "…Where are you now, Toga?" Uraraka asked, "Izuku has no idea where my house is, so if you're there I have to come along because I'll be bringing him."

"Oh, I'm at your house right now, just like you guessed," Toga replied, "Dabi and Spinner are out with your dad, grabbing some sodas and snacks for us to enjoy. Oh, before I forget, make sure that as few people know about our meeting as possible. We're villains, after all, and the pro heroes may want to rush in and ruin things by arresting us. Stain said that he wanted the video clip to be given to Izu-kun since he thinks that Izu-kun is the only one worthy of being someone who bears the title of hero, and should get the credit for taking down or at least exposing the Mysterious Benefactor."

The gravity girl nodded a bit in the affirmative, although Toga couldn't see the nodding as she was on the other end of the call. "…Okay, none of us will inform anyone," Uraraka remarked, "It will just be me and Izuku coming over."

The psychotic school girl hummed a bit in understanding on the other end of the call. "You…you could also bring Tsu-chan along. I really want to just hug her and tell her how sorry I am that her little brother died. Oh, one last thing before I let you go so you guys can come over. Umm…it was me who took that fancy ring of yours from your locker that one time."

"You're the one who stole my grandfather's class ring?!" Uraraka almost exclaimed, sounding very much upset. Toga said a few apologies from her end, explaining that she just wanted to feel like she was closer to Uraraka, and thought that having something like that ring, which Uraraka seemed to care about so much, would be a step in that direction. Toga ended the call by saying she had the ring with her and would be returning it to Uraraka during the upcoming meeting.

A bit frustrated, Uraraka understood and ended the call, before turning to look up and over to Izuku and Tsuyu. "…Izuku, you and I have to go over to my family's place," Uraraka said, "The villains say that they want to deliver video evidence that not only confirms who that Mysterious Benefactor guy is, but also shows the man and some of his lackies standing around as they were watching Samidare die."

That bit caught the attention of not just Izuku, but the rest of the group as well. "The villains have proof that confirms the identity of the man behind so many recent atrocities?" Tenya asked, looking more than surprised.

Uraraka nodded a bit in the affirmative, then turned to regard Tsuyu. "Umm, you could also come if you want, Tsuyu. The three villains that are waiting for me and Izuku, they…" Gently shaking her head, Uraraka said, "…They've seriously come to view your younger siblings as friends, believe it or not. That Toga girl is really upset because she saw the video recording of what happened to your brother, and she wants to hug you and tell you how sorry she is."

"But Sengoku resurrected Samidare kero."

The gravity girl nodded in understanding to what Tsuyu had pointed out to her. "Yes, but the villains don't know that. As far as they know, he's still gone."

"This could all be a trap, you know," Todoroki remarked dryly, "I mean, they _are_ villains."

"But they stopped to take that picture with Samidare and Satsuki that one time," Tsuyu remarked, "I can't think of any reason for them to do that other than them growing legitimately fond of them as friends. It would make sense that they would go so far as to betray the very man who gives them their funding, since he had my little brother killed." Looking over to Uraraka, the frog-like girl asked, "Uraraka, could you try calling Toga back and asking her if it's okay that you, me and Izuku bring Todoroki and Tenya along as well?"

Uraraka nodded in understanding before going about doing as she was asked. After a few moments, she got back in contact with Toga, who agreed that adding just the two extra boys would be okay, so long as nobody else knew what was going on. That made sense, and the villains could do all sorts of stuff if they're cornered by a bunch of pro heroes and police. That call ended, and after that, Uraraka and her friends all gathered what they would need before they headed off to go over to Uraraka's place.

* * *

The five heroes-in-training were able to get over to Uraraka's place without any notable fanfare; they were all able to get permission slips to leave campus relatively easy, as they were all signed off of by Nemuri, who was only paying half-attention at best. Uraraka, given that she and her dad were the ones who lived there, opened the front door and led all of her friends inside. When they stepped in, the first thing that they noticed was that there were three pairs of footwear located by the front door, footwear that Uraraka knew neither she nor her father owned.

"Ura-chan?" Toga's voice called out excitedly, "Is that you?" Before Uraraka or any of her friends could answer, the psychotic schoolgirl herself appeared in view, looking as she always did. Before any of them could have stopped her, Toga came running right over to them, going for Tsuyu in particular. The frog-like girl was a bit startled, but relaxed a bit when all that Toga did was throw her arms around her, drawing her into a hug as she cried softly into her shoulder.

A bit put off and very confused, Tsuyu nonetheless patted the psychotic schoolgirl on the back. As all of that was going on, Dabi and Spinner walked over from the living room, accompanied by Uraraka's dad. The two male villains were counting on the gravity girl bringing Izuku and maybe Tsuyu since Toga asked, but they were both surprised by the presence of both Tenya and Todoroki, who Dabi gave a curious look to.

Speaking of looks, Uraraka's dad looked positively nervous. But then again, he's in the presence of three known villains. "Umm…I guess that you certainly have some rather interesting friends, sweetie?" the brown-haired man remarked, more nervous and confused than anything else.

"I see that you brought a few more people than we were expecting," Dabi said to Uraraka, "Although I am interested in the fact you brought Endeavor's son with you." The blue-flame villain turned to give Todoroki a knowing look. "How are things going with you and that girl you managed to hook up with, by the way?"

"I fail to see why you'd be interested in my relationship with Reiko," Todoroki remarked, "But if you must know we've been having a very lovely time together."

Dabi gave off a bit of a bemused chuckle. "I'm glad to see that you're nothing like…like my own old man. He was a total tyrant towards my mother."

Despite himself, Todoroki found that he was giving a humming chuckle of agreement towards Dabi. "So, you also have a father who was a dick to your mother, huh?"

"This is lovely and all, but Dabi, Toga and I are here for a reason," Spinner interrupted, sounding like he wanted to try to get back to business, "We need to turn over to Izuku Midoriya some video footage that Stain managed to get that would go a long way to the ongoing case against the League of Villains' Mysterious Benefactor."

"Okay, but first," Toga remarked, turning to face Uraraka for a bit. Toga then reached into one of the pockets on her cardigan, fished around for something, then pulled out Uraraka's special ring. "Here you go, Ura-chan," Toga said, sounding a bit guilty as she returned the ring. The gravity girl, with a bit of a wry look, took the ring back from Toga and put it on before she and her friends followed the three villains and Mr. Uraraka over to the dining room area.

* * *

Spinner was apparently a rather dab hand with tech, thus allowing him to set things up so that a burned DVD that had the footage could play on the TV in the living room, which could be seen from the dining room area. "This video…this video contains some pretty fucked up shit, since it does show that boy being hung to death," Spinner remarked, "Also, Stain speaks a few times in the recording, so keep that in mind if you hear him talk suddenly."

The U.A. students and Mr. Uraraka all nodded in understanding as Spinner hit play, beginning the video for everyone to watch. Right away, the U.A. students could see that the video camera that was used was looking through a window that was located well above the ground. It was looking down in a warehouse, and there was a respectable number of men all standing around as they were watching Samidare hang.

The U.A. students were disturbed by the scene, Tsuyu especially so since it was her little brother that she was watching hang; the frog-like girl was so horrified by the scene that she thought that she might throw up at any moment. Apparently, Stain's voice came from the video that was playing, saying, "What the fuck is up with those men? How could they enjoy seeing an innocent boy hang like that? At least the fakes who only pretend to be heroes have the decency to care about kids."

The video recording then slowly moved around, showing a lot of men, some of which were standing so that the video recording got a really good look at them; that by itself would make the video recording invaluable in identifying at least a few of the men who were there watching as an innocent boy hung to death. During the video, the view of the recording shifted back to show where Samidare was hanging; instead of struggling around, he was now hanging eerily still.

Unable to help herself upon seeing a clear recording that showed her little brother hanging lifelessly like that, Tsuyu turned to the side and threw up. This got everyone's attention, although none of them were going to blame Tsuyu for reacting in such a manner. "Yeah, I threw up too when I first saw him hanging dead," Toga remarked in a sympathetic tone.

As Mr. Uraraka went about cleaning up the vomit, the video recording showed that Stain had stopped to focus on something that had caught his attention. "Woah, you've got to be kidding me," the Hero Killer's voice said as it came from the video that was playing, "What the hell is _he_ doing in there? I got a nasty gut feeling that he may be that Mysterious Benefactor asshole who's got those League of Villain fellows in his pocket…"

As the video that was playing showed the camera's point of view moving around, Todoroki saw something that immediately caught his attention. "PAUSE IT!" the two-toned boy yelled, getting the villains' attention and prompting Spinner to pause the video. Seeing that what had caught his attention was not fully in view, Todoroki said, "Try rewinding it a bit." The lizardman villain had the recording go back a bit, and stopped it the moment that the Son of Endeavor told him to.

"You…" Todoroki said, sounding like he couldn't believe what it was that he was seeing, "…You cannot be serious." Pointing right at what had caught his attention, Todoroki said, "That man is the man behind most of everything as of late?"

All of Todoroki's friends, as well as the three villains, were all looking at the man in the video recording that Todoroki was pointing at. "You…know who that man is, Todoroki?" Tenya asked, a curious and mildly confused look on his face.

Todoroki didn't answer his glasses-wearing friend. Instead, he turned to look at the three villains that were in the Uraraka household. "You three mentioned that the Hero Killer wanted Izuku to be the one to receive this video recording so that he could turn it in and get the credit for being the one to bust your group's Mysterious Benefactor, right?" The three villains all nodded in the affirmative to Todoroki's question.

After that, the two-toned boy turned to face Izuku. "As soon as you get the recording, you need to turn it over to the police and pro heroes. Tell them that an anonymous source who owes you a favor got it for you."

"We're…going to have to run this by some of our teachers over at U.A.," Izuku pointed out, "But knowing them, I bet that they'd be able to help us out with this." After the video recording finished, everything was turned off. Spinner popped the burned DVD out of the player, placed it in a clear CD case that he then handed over to Izuku.

"You're the only one worthy of the title of hero, Izuku Midoriya," the lizardman villain said, "As such, it makes sense that Stain would like it if you were the one responsible for the downfall of that man who saw to it that a friend of mine hung. Personally, I'd like to see you be the one that did that as well."

Izuku nodded a bit in understanding; he was a little weirded out how there were at least two known villains, one of them being the _fucking Hero Killer_ of all people, who had such respect for him, but it also at the same time gave him hope that maybe, just maybe, some of the villains were not as evil as they were thought to be. At the very least, Izuku wondered if it would be possible for him to convince some of the villains to turn themselves in.

But that was a thought for later. Right now, the green-eyed boy and his friends had some crucial evidence in the big, overall case, one where a number of other cases were all connected, all tying back to a person who they knew only as the League of Villains' 'Mysterious Benefactor'.

…Who now had a face that the pro heroes and police could pin to that name.

* * *

Over at U.A., Izuku and his friends found Aizawa and Hizashi discussing something with Sekijiro. Upon getting close enough, the students heard the Blood Hero remark how the efforts of the pro heroes and the police in making any progress in the case involving the 'Mysterious Benefactor' had hit a dead end, as the best evidence that they in that case had were a couple of sketches that a police sketch artist got from interviewing a recently resurrected Samidare, and those sketches weren't as helpful as they could be.

It was as Hizashi was about to say something when Izuku and the others got his attention, as well as that from Aizawa and Sekijiro. A bit nervously, Izuku pulled out the case containing the DVD that was supplied to him by Spinner. "Umm, senseis…" Izuku swallowed the nervous lump in his throat. "…There's something that we got here that we have to show you. It's a major break in the main ongoing case that the pro heroes and police are trying to resolve."

…

First off, Aizawa had asked his students for every detail surrounding what had happened. Knowing that they had to be truthful, Izuku and his friends told Aizawa and the other two U.A. teachers everything, leaving out no detail. It was Sekijiro who was the most upset, saying that the students should have reported the phone call Uraraka got from Toga to the teachers and other pro heroes straight away and allow the pros to handle everything.

Aizawa understood where his co-worker was coming from, but he then reminded Sekijiro that the three villains were basically holding someone hostage, that hostage being Mr. Uraraka; it was common procedure to play along as long as was needed when a villain had a hostage like that, even more so when multiple villains were all involved. They were extremely lucky in the sense that the villains in question were not only extremely cooperative with Izuku and the others, but also wanted to see justice brought to the very man who actually funded them.

Even going so far as to see Stain, the single most dangerous villain that was currently at large, work to gather evidence that could be used to bring the LoV's Mysterious Benefactor down. With all of that out of the way, the teachers got the disk player in Nezu's office playing so that all members of the U.A. staff that were part of the efforts in the investigation could watch the video recording that Spinner had supplied Izuku with.

All notable members of the staff were surprised by how many men were in the warehouse, watching as an innocent young boy hung from a noose as he struggled in vain to get out. Very few of the staff were aware that Sengoku had resurrected Samidare a little under an hour after the sole Asui boy had died, so many of the staff were fully horrified and outraged. Even Ryukyu, who was one of the few that was in on the fact, covered her mouth with her hands as she wore a horrified look of shock on her face, tears slowly running down the sides of her face as the video recording was a dark reminder to her of what happened to her kid sister Anahthyne so long ago.

At one point near the end of the recording, Todoroki called for the video to be paused; Snipe had paused it, then the two-toned boy pointed something out. "…That's the man who has been identified as this possible 'Mysterious Benefactor' fellow who had been financially supplying the League of Villains," Todoroki said, his tone very grim, "Given who he is, it's not too difficult to imagine why."

"We're going to have to run this by the police," Nezu remarked, "But from what I can tell, it seems like solid evidence to me." The quirked animal principal turned to look at the five students who had been the ones to bring the burned DVD to him and the rest of the staff. "You five took a serious risk in getting this recording to us," Nezu said, "But it paid off considerably, I would say. Both the police and the pro heroes may finally be able to resolve the ongoing case, thanks to the five of you."

"They may also be able to help in getting to the villains who supplied them with the burned DVD," Nemuri remarked, "And Midoriya did express how he felt that there's a chance that the villains could be convinced to turn themselves in." The other staff members all nodded in agreement to that, a lot of them liking the sound of the idea of a number of notorious villains willingly turning themselves in.

That was a nice thought.

END, CHAPTER SIXTY

Author's notes;

I actually wanted to reveal who the 'Mysterious Benefactor' was in this chapter, but it had dragged on for a bit too long, so it'll be in the next chapter where the police get a look at the video recording. After that, the heroes, pro and in-training alike, will be working to bring one of the largest threats to date down. It's going be a rather emotional chapter to be sure, and more than one person's life will be changed forever because of it, permanently and irrevocably.

See you later.


	61. Chapter 61

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter sixty-one: Moves are made to bring down a titan, part three

"So you're saying that an anonymous source had supplied your student Izuku Midoriya with this evidence," Detective Naomasa said to Aizawa down at the police station. The two of them, along with a mix of police and pro heroes, were all in a debriefing room as all of them watched the video recording on the burned DVD that was given to Izuku by his 'anonymous source'. And what a source that mystery person was, given that they got video recorded proof of a number of persons who not only hung Samidare Asui and watched him slowly die, but said video also had a good shot of the faces of a lot of them.

Including the man who was identified as the 'Mysterious Benefactor', the man who had been financially supplying the current incarnation of the League of Villains.

Aizawa paused the video on a shot that had a clear as day view of the 'Mysterious Benefactor', a man who he had first learned about the existence of back when he led his class on that field trip over in Royal Woods. The underground hero was finding himself wanting to have more than a few words with that man, given what all he had done, including but not limited to trying to ruin the lives of his students as much as possible, one most of all.

Aizawa, as he stood between Hizashi and Sekijiro, gestured to the TV screen on which the video recording was currently playing at the moment, albeit currently paused. "…You're most likely going to have to run that facial recognition program thing that you guys got to identify most of the random guys in the warehouse, but _that man_ right there needs no such courtesy."

"How many pro heroes are available for this mission again?" one of the police officers asked, his curious tone holding a hint of mild nervousness, "I mean, given who we have to go after once we get the arrest warrant, there's no way that it'll be easy, especially considering that he has both that mercenary force and supposedly the League of Villains in his corner. We're looking at one of the biggest efforts ever done by a joint effort between the pro heroes and the police."

Naomasa let out a troubled, mildly resigned sigh. Turning to face his man, the police detective said, "The pro heroes and police are both stretched a bit thin at the moment, what with diverting effort to cover tracking down the last of the League of Villains. Luckily for us, we also got it that the mercenary force employed by the man we're going to be heading after is also stretched a bit on the thin side. That's the good news." Turning to face Aizawa, Sekijiro and Hizashi, Naomasa said with a mildly apologetic look on his face, "Here's where the bad news comes in."

"Let me guess," Hizashi began, a hint of knowing in his tone, "You want the three of us to lead Aizawa's kids and Sekijiro's kids in the raid."

The police detective let out a resigned sigh, which the three U.A. teachers took as confirmation to the cockatiel-haired pro hero's question. "…I was supplied info on your combined forty-nine students by Nezu. Taking all of them and their respective quirks into consideration, I believe that, if the three of you did lead them in the raid, it would be a sufficient force to deal with what all you can expect to face."

"Let's not forget, Naomasa-san," a male voice called out from the side of the meeting room, "That the man we're going after will most likely put a target on Aizawa's student Uraraka given that, if he really _is_ the Mysterious Benefactor, then he had tried to have her killed at least twice." Everyone in the room, hero and police alike, all turned to see Aggro Ace, the Samurai Hero Sengoku, leaning against one of the walls. Leaning against the wall next to Aggro on his left was his protégé Lincoln Loud, the Assassin Hero Ezio.

The two from the United States had come to the debriefing about what all was going to go down when the move was made to go in and collect the prime suspect in who the 'Mysterious Benefactor' was. "She may be a target, given what all has been thrown her way in the past," Aggro went on, "You ought to take that into consideration. Even though we got enough evidence to take him down, which would render his reasons for wanting her dead at all more or less moot, he may have her killed during the raid anyway, if only out of spite."

"I have a plan for that, actually," Aizawa remarked, "Sekijiro, Hizashi and I actually plan to get as many pro heroes we're allied with as possible to help us lead the raid. If the three of us can get seven more, then there will be ten pro heroes leading the raid, allowing us to divide up all of the combined students into groups of five. That will make things more manageable."

"There are only forty-nine students between you and Sekijiro, Aizawa," the Samurai Hero pointed out dryly, "You had that perverted little troll expelled. By the way, I still want to break him because of the stunt he pulled back in Royal Woods."

Gesturing to Aggro, the underground hero remarked, "That is why I was hoping that you'd be willing to fill in the spot to bring the number up to an even fifty."

Aggro nodded in understanding. "Fair enough. If the other pro heroes, as well as the police, are okay with my involvement in the raid then I'll gladly lend a hand with the efforts." Everyone was not only in agreement that having Aggro take part in the raid was a good thing, they were all relieved that he was willing to participate. Having a Sacred Heritage quirk user participate on their team would make things go infinitely easier for them, given the vast power he had with his golden fire.

Shigaraki, if he were alive, would have equated the entire scenario to being similar to a whole bunch of level thirty players getting ready to do a level thirty raid, and then one of them asks a level one-hundred player friend of theirs to help out with the raid.

Getting up from where he was leaning against the wall, Aggro said, "I will have to see to getting Lincoln-kun back to the hotel where the rest of our party is staying while I'm here helping out with a few issues of business that I was called in to help out with." The sole Loud boy nodded in agreement, understanding that a raid like this was not something that a twelve-year-old, even one like him, needed to take part in. Looking to the U.A. teachers, the Samurai Hero said to the three of them, "Once I get Lincoln-kun back to the hotel, I'll be ready to go as soon as you get all of your respective students and a few more pros ready to roll out."

"We still need to call everyone back to U.A. as they're all off campus right now," Hizashi pointed out, "And it may take a while to call in all the necessary pro heroes to help lead the divvied up teams."

Nodding once, Aggro said, "Then I guess I'll just drop Lincoln-kun off at the hotel and then head straight for U.A. and wait there." The three U.A. teachers agreed, and Sekijiro was about to say something, but he was cut off when Officer Sansa came into the room and announced to all of the officers and everyone else in the room that the warrant to go in and arrest the man that was identified as the League of Villains' mysterious financial supplier had just come in.

Clapping his hands together, Naomasa said, "Alright, let's get cracking then. Eraserhead, Vlad King, Present Mic, go gather all of your students. Sengoku, go drop your protégé off and then rendezvous back with the hero portion of the raid team over at U.A." Looking to everyone that was in the room, the police detective said with a look of total seriousness on his face, "I don't have to tell any of you how big of an operation this is going to be, given who it is that we're about to be going after. I think it would be safe to equate this to the Shie Hassaikai raid where we took down Kai Chisaki and his operations."

Everyone nodded in agreement of the seriousness of the situation, given that their target was simply that big of a deal. The heroes and police all knew what they had to do in order to prep for the upcoming raid, thusly they all went about their actions. "I'll catch the three of you back over at U.A. once I return Lincoln-kun to his older sister," Aggro said to the three U.A. teachers as he and his protégé left the police meeting room.

* * *

Izuku Midoriya was sitting in the living room of the Bakugo residence, having been invited over by his girlfriend Mitsuki. The previous afternoon, Izuku and his friends had received evidence from a trio of surprisingly cooperative villains that was then handed over to the teachers, allowing them to review it and bring it to the attention of the police. The green-eyed boy had no idea what was going to happen, but he suspected that there was going to be some manner of very big operation, a joint-effort between both the police and the pro heroes.

As he sat on the sofa in the living room, Mitsuki came down from upstairs, a look on her fact that was mostly confused. "Hey sweetness," the ashy-haired woman began, "The weirdest thing came up while I was getting dressed."

Right away, Izuku light up red like a bright, shiny Christmas ornament. "W-While you were getting d-d-dressed, Mitsuki?" Izuku stammered, clearly embarrassed about how his girlfriend was so casually mentioning her dressing habits.

"Yeah, my bra felt a bit weird when I put it on earlier," Mitsuki began, her tone casually conversational, "And the left cup felt kind of weird on my left tit. I checked things out and some of the area of the tit in question felt kind of like an orange's peel when I ran my fingers over the area in question." Giving Izuku a curious look, Mitsuki asked, "Do you think that I might be in the middle of developing a new quirk of some kind?"

Being embarrassed because of how his girlfriend, who is a little over twice his age mind you, was so casually going on about her breasts, Izuku quickly stammered out an embarrassed, "I will have to ask All Might about it later, but for now I-"

Izuku's phone went off, giving him a much-needed respite from how his older girlfriend was talking about her breasts in her usual shameless manner. Answering his phone, Izuku said, "Hi, this is Izuku Midoriya. How may I-"

"Midoriya," Aizawa's voice cut Izuku off from the other end of the line, "Get back to U.A. pronto. I will see you and the rest of the class there." The underground hero then ended the call, leaving a confused green-haired cinnamon roll staring at his phone.

"…I guess I need to get back to U.A.," Izuku remarked. Mitsuki offered to drive him over, an offer that Izuku was glad for as it would save him a whole lot of time. After he got everything ready, Izuku waited for Mitsuki to find her purse before she led him out to her car. The two of them got in, and after both she and Izuku buckled up, Mitsuki stuck the key into the ignition, turned her car on, and quickly tore out of the driveway. It was then that Izuku had remembered something rather important about his older girlfriend.

Mitsuki Bakugo was one of the single craziest drivers that he had ever personally known in his entire life.

* * *

"Hey Compress." Over at the abandoned warehouse that the current incarnation of the League of Villains was using as a hideout, Mr. Compress perked up a bit when one of the rank and file members asked for his attention upon walking up.

The dapperly dressed villain turned around to give his attention to the fodder member that came up, an early twenties man who was one of the villains Shigaraki had during the USJ incident. "Some of the guys that were mercenaries for that Uncle Pennybags guy who helps to fund us here in the League are acting a bit…curious."

"Curious?" Mr. Compress repeated, the hint of curiosity in his tone masking a slight hint of dreading worry, "How so?"

The USJ villain shrugged a bit, a sign that he wasn't quite sure how to put what he wanted to say, not that it would stop him from giving the LoV enforcer standing before him the bare facts. "Ever since you and the other leading guys in charge had that funeral pyre for Twice, the guys that were mercenaries for Mr. ATM have all sort of been acting like you and the other leading guys…don't exactly have the League's best intentions in mind?" The USJ villain gently shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir, but that's the best way I can put how things are coming off to me."

"No, no, there's no need to worry too much," Mr. Compress assured the fodder member, "And as a matter of fact, I've noticed a bit of what you're worried about as well." The dapperly dressed villain then saw the USJ villain talking to him give off a sigh of relief. That villain thanked the LoV enforcer for his time before taking off, leaving Mr. Compress alone to his thoughts as he made his way over to where he knew Kurogiri and Skeptic were waiting.

It wasn't just Mr. Compress and the USJ villain that had noticed things like that; it was all of the leading members of the League of Villains who have noticed signs that the loyalties of the fodder members that were mercenaries that worked for the Mysterious Benefactor might not be entirely with Dabi and the League. Mr. Compress believed that this could very well prove to be a serious problem later on down the line if nothing were done to resolve the matter.

But it was just Mr. Compress, Kurogiri and Skeptic who were present at the LoV base right now; Dabi, having taken Spinner and Toga with him, was off doing what the blue-flame villain had told the masses of the League's rank and file was an important mission. Of course, Dabi and the other leading members all knew the truth; none of the rank and file knew it, but all the leading figures were in secret working with Stain the Hero Killer to help the police and pro heroes bring down the Mysterious Benefactor.

Mr. Compress, still bound by the curse mark power that one of the Mysterious Benefactor's men put on him with his quirk, was unable to say anything that would have revealed what he knew, even though that video recording that Stain got did indeed show the LoV's mysterious financial supplier, even getting a good, clear shot of the man's face. And that recording was delivered to the hands of a member of the hero community who Stain had personally selected to receive the boon to the efforts of the side of justice.

Maybe, once the identity of that man is revealed to the populace of Japan at large, Mr. Compress could finally get himself rid of that curse mark, either by having the man who applied it remove it, or the curse mark breaking on its own because Mr. Compress would know full well that so many people at that point would know who the Mysterious Benefactor was that having the curse mark would be rendered completely moot.

It was the most that the dapperly dressed villain could hope for.

* * *

By the time that Izuku arrived in the large classroom that 1-A and 1-B had their big joint math exam in a while ago, he was that, while he was the last student in class 1-A to arrive, a few of the students in class 1-B were still missing. To the surprised curiosity of the green-eyed boy, he saw that Aggro Ace standing in the room, leaning his back against the wall on the right hand side of the room (if you enter the room and face forward directly).

A few moments after Izuku arrived in the room, the last three members of 1-B that hadn't shown up yet, those being Monoma, Artemis and Akuma, finally came in. "Hey Izuku," Akuma said in his usual gruff manner as he walked over to Izuku, "You have any idea why our teachers called all of us back to the school all of a sudden?"

Izuku gently shook his head in the negative. "Sorry, Akuma, but I'm just as much in the dark on the matter as you are. All I got was a call from Aizawa-sensei while I was with my girlfriend, telling me to get back to U.A. right away. That was the only thing that he had said to me before he hung up on me suddenly."

The satanic U.A. student gave off a grunt that was three parts annoyed and seven parts curious. "There's no way that something big is not about to happen. Mark my words Izuku, there's about to be one hell of a time coming up really quick."

Izuku was not about to argue with Akuma on that matter; the green-haired cinnamon roll was getting the same feelings that the Satanist of U.A. was having right now. He wished that he knew just what was about to go down, if only to relieve what feelings of tension that he was having. Then, as if his silent wonderings were being answered, Aizawa walked into the room, followed by Sekijiro and Hizashi.

The three teachers made their way to the front of the classroom and stood there, with Aizawa getting all of the students to sit down; Aggro simply remained leaning against the wall that he had been leaning against all this time. After all of the U.A. students were seated, Nezu popped out of Aizawa's capture weapon scarf and jumped down to land on the floor, so that he may address all of the first years in his school's hero course. All eyes were focused on the quirked animal principal of U.A. as he cleared his throat before he spoke up, telling all of them why they had been called back to the school.

"As you all may know," Nezu began, "Many events as of late have been orchestrated by a man who for the longest time remained a total mystery to both the pro heroes and the police. This man's atrocities range all over the place, including but not limited to sending assassins after one of your own during a field trip, sending a squad of mercenaries to besiege U.A. to try and kill said schoolmate of yours when the first attempt failed, bankrolling the League of Villains for the longest time, being suspected of having the League of Villains do various tasks for him that would take too long to list all of them, and finally arranging to have a younger sibling of one of your own killed."

The forty-nine gathered students all murmured amongst themselves worriedly, especially the very students who knew full well their principal was specifying when he listed what all that the LoV's mysterious financial supplier had been up to. "At the point that the joint efforts between the pro heroes and police had gotten to in the investigation late yesterday afternoon," Nezu went on, "They had reached many dead ends. However, the investigation was able to make a much-needed, critical breakthrough thanks to an anonymous source volunteering evidence that they had gathered to your schoolmate Izuku Midoriya."

Everyone in the room turned to look where the green-eyed boy sat in the room, vaguely surrounded by Uraraka, Tsuyu, Todoroki, Tenya and Shinso. Nezu clapped his hands a bit, getting everyone to look right back at him. The quirked animal principal then held up a clear CD case that held a burned DVD that contained the video recording that a very select few knew had been gathered by the Hero Killer in his part in trying to bring down the Mysterious Benefactor that had the League of Villains in his pocket.

"This right here," Nezu said, "Is that very evidence, a video recording that shows who has been confirmed to be the very man that has seen to so much problems as of late." Lowering his arm that he had up, Nezu let out a resigned sigh. "…Here's the deal, my students. Due to the lack of available pro heroes because of other problems going on, your teachers, along with what few pros they were able to get their hands on, will be leading the fifty of you in a raid that will be going down later today, with the goal of the raid being to capture the financial supplier of the League of Villains."

The U.A. students, at least a good majority of them, all became a bit alarmed, given that they were just told that they were going to be taking part in a raid. "Excuse me, Principal Nezu," Tenya said as he raised a hand, "But you just said that the _fifty_ of us will be led by our teachers and some pro heroes in the raid. There's only forty-nine of us right now, given that Mineta had recently been expelled."

"That's where I come in," Aggro called out, getting all of the U.A. hero course first years to turn to face him, "I'm going to be number fifty."

"Indeed," Nezu said to the students as a whole while gesturing to Aggro, "Our efforts during the raid will be bolstered by the Samurai Hero here." That was the second announcement that got a lot of the U.A. students murmuring amongst themselves; all of them knew that Sengoku was one of the Sacred Heritage quirk users that came from Royal Woods during the event where their schools' respective teams would have had a team battle event. They also knew full well what a person of Sengoku's level was capable of, with several boys in 1-A having had a personal taste of what things were like in that regard.

Nezu nodded once before he continued, a clear hint of resignation in the air he was giving off as he held up the DVD again. "Before we get down to business on the matter of how exactly we'll be going about conducting the raid, I've decided that, in order for you all to best have an idea on who it is that we'll be going after, Aizawa, Sekijiro, Hizashi and I will play this recorded video for you all. Please be warned that it contains some truly unsettling material."

"Some of you are…are _not_ going to like what you will be seeing," Aizawa said in a tone of warning as he eyed the students as a whole, all of them unknowing of the fact that the underground hero was eyeing a few of them in particular.

…

The entirety of the recorded video clip was played, up to and including showing the part where Samidare being hung ended up causing his death. Most of the people in the room were all unaware of the fact that the Sacred Heritage quirk user in the room with them had already resurrected the sole Asui boy, so as far as all of the unknowing persons knew, their frog-like schoolmate's little brother was gone forever.

"NOOOOOOO!" Mina cried as tears ran freely down the sides of her face, "You can't be serious! Tsuyu's little brother can't be dead! He was too precious!"

As the pink-skinned girl threw her face into her arms as they rested on her desk and began to cry in full force, some of the other students began to cry over what they had seen, although a good number of them were simply too horrified to show any manner of emotion. It would be to some surprise on her part that Ibara had noticed that Akuma, of all people, was among those who was utterly horrified by what was seen in the video recording.

As some of the other 1-A girls tried to get Mina to settle down, Setsuna from 1-B gestured to the smartboard that the video clip had just played on. "So that one bastard that was pointed out to us is the man that we have to take down, right?" Pounding a fist into her hand, the recommended girl of class 1-B swore, "So let's go over to where he's at and kick his ass already!"

"Tokage, we have to wait for the pro heroes that we were able to get to help me, Aizawa and Hizashi lead the charge to get here," Sekijiro said, "When they arrive, we'll divide the fifty of you up into ten groups of five, with each group led by a pro. Then we'll discuss how to go about conducting the raid, and once we all know what the game plan is, we'll ship out to go kick that sorry son of a bitch's ass and take him down."

"You said that other pro heroes will be coming to help with the raid, Sekijiro-sensei?" Itsuka asked as she raised a hand.

The Blood Hero nodded twice in the affirmative to his student's class rep. "Yes, Kendo. In addition to myself, Aizawa and Hizashi, we'll be having Mt. Lady, Mirko, Ryukyu, Fat Gum, Endeavor, Edgeshot and Kamui Woods leading the raid. We'll figure out who all will be on which raid team led by which pro hero when those seven all get here."

Todoroki gave off a bit of an amused chuckle when he heard that one of the pro heroes who were coming to lead one of the raid teams was Endeavor. "I should have guessed it that one of the pros that you senseis got would end up being my father."

The lack of annoyance in Todoroki's tone while he spoke of his father had caught Aizawa's attention. "You…aren't annoyed that your father is coming here, Todoroki?"

The two-toned boy gave an indifferent shrug. "What can I say? The bastard's actually trying to do good now. Granted there's still a good bit that my father has to do when it comes to the rest of our family, but he has shown that he's willing to do what it takes to at least make it clear that his intentions of trying to turn around really are as they appear to be."

"Heh, well what do you know?" Bakugo remarked, giving off an amused smirk, "It looks like IcyHot is finally starting to get over his issues with dear old-" The ashy-haired teen stopped short when he noticed that his classmate Yaoyorozu was still starring right at the smartboard, even though the video clip that had played on it had long since been taken down. "…Oi, Ponytail, the fuck are you still doing looking at the smartboard?" Bakugo asked, his gruff tone an even mix of mildly annoyed and curiously confused, "Something get your-"

"That…that man…" Yaoyorozu remarked, cutting Bakugo off even though her tone was barely above a whisper. The look on her face, one that was a mix of absolute horror mixed with a dash of heartbreak, was unmistakable. She pointed to the smartboard where the video clip had played. "…The one that's been identified as the man who's been behind most of everything that has taken place as of late." Yaoyorozu gulped nervously, knowing full well what she had to say on the subject, something that most everyone in the room was unaware of.

"…That man…he's my father."

…

Over at the Yaoyorozu mansion, Ryoga was sitting alone in his large, ornate private study. The wealthiest man in Japan was going over some files that he had spread out over his desk, a good number of them related to all of his less-than-legal activities as of late, including a good number of files relating to how he's been supplying funding to the League of Villains so that they could help him with some of his…private…business dealings.

As he went over his files, Ryoga was interrupted when one of his men came running into the study. "Sir, one of your mercenaries in the League of Villains has just reported that their leading members are making moves against you." The man gulped a bit nervously. "What do you want done about it, sir?"

"Tell my man and all others in the League to turn on those traitors," Ryoga replied right away, the casual manner in which he spoke suggesting that he felt something like this would have gone on at some point anyway.

"The other half of the League's rank and file are loyal to their commanders," the man pointed out, "Being made up of villains from the attack that happened at the USJ early in the current school year for U.A. and a few extra recruits that were gathered shortly after the prison break out of Tartarus. If your men that are in the League turn on and try to attack Dabi and the other leading figures of the League, then the ones who are loyal to Dabi will retaliate and attack their fellow League members."

The wealthy man contemplated the notion, realizing that his agent had a point. The rank and file of the LoV that was loyal to Dabi would undoubtedly attack the mercenaries that worked for the name of the Yaoyorozu Conglomerate. At best, both halves would destroy each other fully, which would leave the League with only its leading figures left; at worst, the mercenaries in the League would get wiped out and there would still be a few of the villains loyal to Dabi left, giving him and the other commanding figures in the League some backup should they decide to try and take the fight right to the front step of Ryoga's mansion.

…But even in that scenario, Ryoga felt like he would still come out on top. After all, he was the wealthiest man in the nation; he could easily gather enough mercenaries and other hired hands to wipe out the League of Villains in full, even if the mercenaries in the League all decide to turn on him and swear their loyalty to the blue-flame villain. Ryoga felt confident that there would be no force that could possibly take him on.

Nothing would stop him.

END, CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

Author's notes;

…Yeah, I'm pretty sure that a lot of you saw that twist coming from a mile away. Even so, the man who could be considered the ultimate big bad of this story as a whole has just been officially revealed, and it's Yaoyorozu's father Ryoga. That being said, a lot of stuff will be going down in the next chapter, as the heroes move in to try to apprehend the wealthiest man in the nation. But things won't be so easy, and even the villains will have their own stuff to deal with.

Regardless of what happens, things _will_ be getting nasty.


	62. Chapter 62

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter sixty-two: Moves are made to bring down a titan, part four

A mass gathering of heroes, pro and in-training alike, had gathered in Gym Gamma over at U.A. High School. Nezu, the quirked animal principal of U.A., stood with a selection of ten pro heroes, some of which taught at U.A. either full-time or were hired on to temporary posts that were necessitated due to recent events. Many of said recent events could all be traced back to the very reason why everyone had gathered in Gym Gamma in the first place.

The mysterious person who was the man behind the man, the true big boss behind so many recent troubles that the heroes and society had to deal with as of late.

Among those gathered before Nezu and the ten pro heroes were the twenty-four students that made up U.A.'s class 1-A, as well as the twenty-five students that made up U.A.'s class 1-B, and finally Aggro Ace, a quirked hero who had come over from the United States, and also known as the Samurai Hero Sengoku. Aggro's presence brought the number that the ten pro heroes had gathered before them up to an even fifty.

The idea was to have each of the ten pro heroes lead a group of five from among the lot of students that were gathered before all of them as the combined force carried out a raid to apprehend the Mysterious Benefactor who, among other things, had been providing funding to the League of Villains. However, many of the students were all still reeling from surprise when they all learned _who_ it was exactly that they were going to be gunning for, who the Mysterious Benefactor had turned out to be.

Ryoga Yaoyorozu, the father of their classmate/schoolmate Momo Yaoyorozu.

"Everyone, I'm glad that you all were able to come here," Nezu said as he spoke to all of the first years (and Sengoku) who had gathered before him, "In approximately one hour from now, we're going to be conducting a raid that, if all goes according to plan, will allow the pro heroes to at last apprehend the person who has been behind so many atrocities as of late."

"If by person you mean that shitsack that Momo calls her daddy, then yes Principal Nezu," Mina remarked, clearly sounding very pissed off and bitter as she raised a hand, "Yes we'll be catching that sorry ass of his."

Mina's bitter words, reminding all of the U.A. students, that the father of one of their own is the very man that they were about to go after, made them all call out argumentatively towards their ponytailed classmate, some of them deriding her personally. It almost got to the point where some of the pro heroes had to cut in, but all of the U.A. students stopped short when Yaoyorozu, with tears streaming down the sides of her face, shouted at the top of her lungs, "DON'T YOU THINK THAT I KNOW THAT?!"

The entirety of Gym Gamma fell silent as all eyes went right over to Yaoyorozu. "…I had just found out what my father has done at the same time as the rest of you. Do any of you think that I'm okay with finding out that my father has ties to known villains, as well as having a number of other charges and crimes traced all the way back to him? Do any of you think that I actually _like_ having one of the most evil men in the entire history of Japan as a parent? Do any of you think that any of this somehow comes back to me?! I'm a hero damn it, or at least I'm trying to be!"

The ponytailed girl shuddered violently as she hung her head and cried. Right away, a few of the other U.A. students all moved to stand before their schoolmates, with those few being Uraraka, Tsuyu and Yosetsu. "You guys, Momo has nothing to do with any of the bullshit that has gone on as of late," Yosetsu said in a serious tone as he and the two girls that were with him addressed everyone else, "Trying to grill her over something that she not only had no knowledge of but also no control over is not only wrong, but also stupid and more than a little cruel."

"Yosetsu's got a point kero," Tsuyu remarked as she was jerking a thumb at the welding boy of class 1-B, "It wasn't Yaoyorozu who tried to have Uraraka murdered twice. It wasn't Yaoyorozu who arranged to have my little brother hang to death. It wasn't Yaoyorozu who employed a force of mercenaries to lay siege to U.A., or had paid a bunch of villains to carry out various tasks. She is still just as much of an aspiring hero as any of us here, and is one of the ones among the lot of all here who wants her father to be apprehended the most."

Uraraka, who wore a conflicted look on her face, remained silent as she heard Yosetsu and Tsuyu give their respective pieces. After her frog-like classmate had finished speaking, Uraraka spoke up. "…Yaoyorozu didn't do anything wrong. Treating her like she did is not going to get what has to be taken care of done any faster, nor will it resolve anything. We ought to save our accusations for the person who _is_ in the wrong." Those among the lot of U.A. students who had been speaking out against their ponytailed schoolmate for the offence of being the daughter of the man that all of them were about to go after were shamed into silence.

As for those who hurled no such remarks towards Yaoyorozu, they silently approved of what Yosetsu, Uraraka and Tsuyu had done just now. "…I don't think I could have said it better myself," Ryukyu remarked, more than a little proud of the words that two of her interns had spoken just now, even more so because those two interns in particular had suffered more than most due to the actions of the father of the very classmate that they were defending.

"I don't know," Mirko remarked as she shrugged, "I kind of have to agree with what all that those-" The Rabbit Hero was cut off by a sharp smack to the back of her head from Mt. Lady, who could tell full well that Mirko sounded like she was actually going to verbally state that she agreed with the students that were deriding the ponytailed girl of class 1-A.

When everything had settled, Nezu said, "Yes, well, umm, anyway we need to get to the part where all of you are divided up into teams of five, with each team being assigned to a different one of the ten pro heroes here. These team formations were decided on ahead of time, so please don't complain if you end up with someone you don't like, or are assigned to a pro hero that you are not all that comfortable working under. We have more important things to worry about than personal preferences here."

Some of the U.A. students could tell where this was going, but they all agreed with their principal that the upcoming raid was of too great of importance to let their feelings get in the way. As such, all of the heroes-in-training, plus their guest ally from the United States, all got into their respective groups. For Izuku, this saw him along with Bakugo, Todoroki, Akuma and Artemis on the team assigned to Endeavor.

"I hope that you boys are ready for one of the biggest things that any of you have ever done to date," the Flame Hero said in a serious tone, "We're about to try and apprehend the wealthiest man in the nation. There is no way this will go easy, especially since we know for a fact that he has a large number of private mercenaries working for him, not to mention how he's got a bunch of villains in his employ."

None of the boys looked like they were going to object, as all of them knew full well what had to be done here. Todoroki even pounded a fist into his hand, a gesture that showed how utterly mad he was, as well as how much in agreement he was with his pro hero father. "We're going to take him down, father. I don't care how many villains whose asses we have to kick in the process, that smarmy bastard will be behind bars before the end of today."

"You're still pissed that Ponytail's daddy tried to get you to dump Ghost Girl, and right in front of Ghost Girl no less, so that you could go out with Ponytail herself, aren't you IcyHot?" Bakugo asked, the self-amused smirk on his face showing that he was entertained by this side of the two-toned boy.

"Ryoga tried to do what now?" Endeavor asked, the look on his face showing shock with a dash of disgusted outrage. The Flame Hero shook his head, to try and get his mind back on track. "We can discuss all of that business later. For now, we need to deploy with the other teams for the raid on Yaoyorozu Mansion." Izuku and the others all nodded in agreement with Japan's current number one pro hero, following him out of Gym Gamma as they went out with the rest of the divvied up teams.

* * *

Dabi, as well as the rest of what remained of the League of Villains' command structure, were all shocked to the point of being horrified when the six of them all returned to where they had their secret base at. When they all stepped foot into the warehouse, they saw the remains of what had been a massive bout of infighting, broken bodies and some blood all over. Dabi ordered Skeptic, Mr. Compress and Kurogiri to do a count on what all had gone on here while he took Toga and Spinner with him to his office.

When the three of them got to Dabi's office, they found four of the rank and file members of the League of Villains lying dead on the floor while another two, with both of those two being women, laid barely hanging on. "D-Dabi…" the first female villain said weakly as she saw her boss with his second and third in command.

This female villain was fair-skinned, had long dark royal purple hair in a straight hime-style cut, and she wore glasses with large round lenses that covered her fierce red eyes, a light pastel pink long-sleeved shirt under a light pastel lavender baggy t-shirt, a dark colored school uniform skirt that reached her knees, a pair of light gray sweatpants under the skirt, and a pair of rather clunky looking dark brown sneakers. She was sitting on the floor, leaning up against the right-hand wall (if you enter the room and face forward) as most of her clothing that she wore was rather heavily stained with her own blood, coming from her own wounds.

"What the fuck happened here, Hinata?" Dabi asked as he knelt down next to his wounded underling; something else that set Dabi apart from the previous League of Villains leader was the fact that, unlike said previous leader, the blue-flame villain made an effort to remember the names of all of the rank and file members. Dabi had only so far managed to remember the names of all rank and file members that were either villains from the USJ attack such as Hinata, or a few extras that were recruited after Dabi got his ideal form for the League formed.

He never got around to getting the names of the rank and file that were mercenaries that had originally worked for Ryoga, the League's 'Mysterious Benefactor'.

Hinata coughed as she shook a bit, shuddering due to how cold she felt. "The masses of the League…the ones who originally worked for the mysterious guy who gave us a lot of our funding…it turned out that their loyalty still laid with Uncle Pennybags. All of the mercenaries had suddenly tried to turn on the League, with one of them saying something about how the 'real boss of the League' wanted to change the League's leadership."

Dabi swore to himself under his breath; he had a dreading feeling in the pit of his stomach that allowing any of the villains that had escaped from Tartarus that were former mercenaries for the League's financial supplier was not the wisest move in the world, but only allowed it anyway due to the sheer need for the numbers. "The last of the fighting happen*HACK*ed here in your office, Dabi," Hinata said weakly, "Levy and I took the four mercenary guys in here out for good. But I think that they were able to a number on the two of us before Levy and I killed the sorry lot of *HACK* them."

Dabi turned his head to see behind him as Spinner and Toga fretted over Hinata's fighting partner Levy; about half a head shorter than Hinata, Levy was fair skinned, had light blue hair in a bob cut that reached just below her chin, and wore a long-sleeved pastel orange blouse under a sleeveless black coat that on her reached her knees, a skirt that matched her blouse in terms of color, and a pair of strappy girl's sandals. Spinner and Toga got her laying on the sofa in Dabi's office, and Toga was slowly freaking out as she and Spinner were failing to get any sort of response from the eerily still blue-haired villainess.

Turning back to face Hinata, Dabi said, "I still can't believe that you and Levy would go so far to try and help save the League from members who would betray us just because that rich fucker that we used to follow said so." At this point, the League of Villains officially _used to_ take orders from their financial supplier; there was simply just no way that Dabi could in good faith continue to lead those who trusted themselves to his authority under the thumb of a man so oppressive, he made any other person of evil intent look completely lenient. And yes, that includes the sensei of the late Shigaraki, as well as the late Shigaraki himself.

"D-Dabi, sir…" Hinata muttered weakly, her voice barely above a whisper, as she felt herself grow weaker and colder, "I'm…I'm sorry that I only did as much as I could…now all I can…can do now is…is feel cold…" The dying villainess suddenly felt someone wrap their arms around her, and then she felt an aura of warmth try to begin to spread over her.

Dabi knew that there was nothing that could be done at this point to save Hinata, knew that Levy was already gone. All that the blue flame villain could do now was to hold his underling, to try to comfort her in her as she had her final moments. He even activated his quirk just enough to make his body exude a lot of warmth; no flames appeared at all. Hence why the dying villainess felt one last bit of warmth before she drew her last breath.

He knew it when Hinata had finally died, so Dabi gently lowered her back against the wall that he found her leaning against as she sat on the floor in his office. Dabi got back up from where he was kneeling as he turned to face Spinner and Toga, the latter softly crying as she and Spinner looked down where the other dead villainess in the room laid on the sofa. As Dabi looked down at himself and saw that he did get a little bit of Hinata's blood on himself, Kurogiri appeared in the doorway with Mr. Compress and Skeptic.

"I just did a headcount," Kurogiri said, "Nine of the rank and file members who had used to be mercenaries for our Mysterious Benefactor are unaccounted for. I suspect that they had escaped and are out there in the city somewhere." The misty Nomu gently shook the mass of dark mist that was his head, conveying a mixed feeling of disgust and shame over what had happened. Kurogiri then did a count of the six total dead League members in Dabi's office. "Other than that, every last one of the fodder members of the League are dead, having killed each other in the infighting. The four mercenaries in here means that only five are unaccounted for."

Holding his arms up in the air, Skeptic said, "Well fuck. This is just great. We finally had a good sized League going, and now most of our rank and file is dead, with the five that aren't turning traitor on us. It's just the six of us left now, huh?"

"What should we do now, Dabi?" Mr. Compress asked as he and what other members that remained of the League of Villains as a whole turned to face their leader. The blue-flame villain gave a resigned, troubled sigh as he rubbed his temples. There was no way that the League was going to recover from this, and with the evidence that Dabi and his friends turned over to Izuku Midoriya on behalf of Stain, the very man who had ruined the lives of many, as well as claim the lives of many others, was guaranteed to be apprehended by the pro heroes and police.

Looking around his office, Dabi took note of where Levy laid dead on his office's sofa, where Hinata sat dead on the floor as her corpse was propped up against the right-hand wall. The fodder members who were former mercenaries for Uncle Pennybags could burn for all that Dabi cared, but the USJ villains and the few extras that were recruited to the League since he got what all numbers that he wanted deserved some level of respect. They were still loyal to Dabi, still loyal to the vision that the blue-flame villain wanted to lead everyone to.

Dabi sighed to himself before he turned to face Toga and the guys. "We're going to at least try to sort out all of the dead, separate the mercenaries from those who actually cared about how things were done here in the League. We'll lay out the loyal ones and pile all the mercenaries in a big pile in a far corner of the large space in the warehouse. After that, the six of us are going to go and track down the five sorry sacks of shit that got away and show them what happens when you decide to turn traitor."

The other five villains all agreed; they all had some traitor-hunting to do.

* * *

Over at the Yaoyorozu mansion, Ryoga was in his private study when two of his men came in, both of them clearly looking panicked. "Sir, we got bad news and worse news!" the first man said, "The bad news is that our men in the League not only failed to take over, but all of them save for five were killed. The five that survived managed to escape, but it may be a while before they come out of hiding out of fear that they may be killed by surviving League members that are still loyal to that Dabi fellow."

The wealthy man slammed a fist on his desk, clearly unamused that his efforts to make the League of Villains fall in line with what he wanted had failed so spectacularly. "And what, pray tell, is the worse news?" Ryoga asked, his temper barely controlled.

"A large number of heroes are all headed for the mansion," the second man explained, sounding very guilty that he had to be the one to tell his boss what was happening, "They should be here within a few minutes."

"WHAT?!" Ryoga exclaimed at the top of his lungs, "YOU'VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!" The wealthy man forced himself to calm down as he paced back and forth, trying to figure out what to do. "…Call whatever men are still available back here pronto. As for the men that are already here, have them ready to intercept and fight off all of the heroes that are undoubtedly coming to try to take me in."

Both of Ryoga's men that were in the room with him looked to one another before they both turned to look back at their boss. "Umm, sir," the second man said, "There's…something that you should know about the hero force that's coming here to the mansion." Letting out a resigned sigh, the second man explained, "It consists primarily of hero course students from U.A. High School, being led by a selection of ten pro heroes."

"And one of the hero course students that's being led here by the pros is your daughter," the first man added. That bit of news really did a number to set Ryoga off; the wealthy man was beyond enraged that his own daughter Momo was turned against him, had sided with the very people who are coming to apprehend him. Ryoga let loose a primal, bloodcurdling scream as he grabbed a fancy expensive desk lamp and threw it with all his might, sending it into a wall where it broke upon impact.

Huffing in exhaustion, Ryoga pointed at his two men. "You two," the wealthy man said in a serious tone, "Go find my wife and make sure she's kept secure in one of the rooms. Don't let her out until the inevitable raid on the estate is over." Trying to calm himself down, Ryoga straightened out his clothes a bit. "…The men will kill all of the incoming heroes, save for my daughter, then I'll spin everything as an attempt by the heroes to kill the innocent me. I have the wealth and influence to make sure I can get away with it."

Gesturing to his boss, the second man asked, "But what if miss Momo-"

"I will teach her better than to turn against me again," Ryoga replied coolly, sounding every bit as confident that everything he had just commanded, everything that he had just said will be done, is what will be happening. The wealthy man firmly believed that he had more than enough resources and pull to make even the incoming raid by the heroes nothing more than a slight mar that he could very easily rub out. He wasn't the wealthiest, as well as the most ruthless, man in Japan for nothing.

Comes with being a successful businessman.

* * *

The force of heroes, pro and in-training alike, that had been assembled to capture Ryoga were all making their way over to Yaoyorozu Mansion. Izuku, as he traveled under Endeavor along with Todoroki, Bakugo, Akuma and Artemis, couldn't help but worry about what all was about to be going down, and at the home where one of his own classmates lived. As if he was able to sense all of the conflict his intern felt, Endeavor spoke to Izuku as all of the heroes made their way.

"You are troubled by what we're on our way to do, Midoriya."

The green-haired cinnamon roll nodded once in confirmation to the Flame Hero. "I still can't believe that Yaoyorozu's father is the man behind so much of what has happened as of late. How could he have orchestrated all of the atrocities that have caused all of us nothing but grief and misery as of late?"

Endeavor gave a gruff grunt as he turned away from looking at Izuku so he could look forward. "I would have to say a mix of pride and greed." Izuku, as well as Todoroki, Bakugo, Akuma and Artemis all turned to look at Endeavor as they followed him. "From what I can figure, a lot of the offences that have been attributed to him are inspired by either greed to have more wealth, power and influence, or his ego being wounded by some manner of what he viewed as a slight that was made against him."

"Heh, two of the seven sins, eh?" Akuma remarked in a darkly self-amused tone, getting the others in his group to turn to look at him, "Nun Girl will have a field day whacking Rich Girl's daddy upside the head with a bible."

Izuku could understand where the satanic 1-B student was coming from, but he put all of such thoughts to the side for the time being. Right now, Izuku, along with not just the rest of 1-A but all of 1-B, were being led by ten pro heroes to go and apprehend just one man. The green-eyed boy was still worried, given that all of this force was mobilized, and that most of said force was consisting of first years at U.A.

All that Izuku's classmate Mina said on the matter was that all of them had better get some very serious extra credit for doing all of this.

END, CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Author's notes;

I really wanted to put the first part of the fighting in this chapter, but by the time I got to the point of Ryoga saying that he will make his daughter act as he wants her to, I realized that I was not going to be able to show any fighting. That will have to be pushed back to the next chapter, which I promise you will see a lot of action. Anyway, the only hero team I have set up at the moment is the one lead by Endeavor, and that's just because Izuku is on that team. I need to get the other team layouts written up.

Especially given what will happen next chapter.


	63. Chapter 63

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter sixty-three: Moves are made to bring down a titan, part five

Maka Yaoyorozu, wife to the wealthiest man in Japan bar none, was contently enjoying a mid-morning tea, something she liked to indulge in every now and then because rich. She looked much like an adult version of her and Ryoga's daughter Momo, saved for the fact that she wore her black hair straight and that it was trimmed so that it ended just barely brushing against the top of her shoulders, whereas if Momo wore her hair straight then it would be much longer.

She was sitting outside on a shaded patio, enjoying the time of day as it was peaceful and relatively quiet. After she sat her teacup down, Maka picked up the book that she was reading and lifted it back up. …Or rather, she would have picked her book back up if she didn't notice the odd rippling effect on the surface of the tea that was still in her teacup. There was then a second ripple, which was also accompanied by, to Maka's confusion as well as a mild hint of worry, a tremor in the ground.

"This isn't going to be an earthquake, is it?" Maka asked, more confused and curious than actually afraid. There was then another tremor, followed by the cries of large, monstrous beasts. Rattled by those cries, Maka turned to look in the direction that she heard the cries come from. To the wealthy woman's shock, she saw three large beings. One she recognized as the pro hero Mt. Lady in her giant form. Another she recognized as the pro hero Ryukyu in her dragon form. But the third, a gigantic multi-tailed fox that seemed to be made _entirely_ out of golden fire, was a complete and total mystery to her.

All three of them, Maka could tell to her worry, were making a beeline right for her family's mansion.

When the three beings got close enough, Maka was able to see a massive number of much smaller dots that, when they got close enough, Maka was able to see were various people that were clearly with Mt. Lady, Ryukyu and the gold fire multi-tailed fox. As the wealthy woman got up as she began to panic, one of the servants who worked for her family came outside and ran right over to where Maka had previously been enjoying herself in the shade that the shaded patio provided her.

"Miss Maka, the mansion is about to be raided by the heroes," the servant said, "Mister Ryoga asked that you be taken to a safe area in the mansion where the heroes won't be able to get to you to cause any harm."

"Why, though?" Maka asked, clearly rattled, "Why are the heroes about to raid my family's home? What's going on?"

The servant said nothing to answer the question posed to him by his employer's wife. Instead, he merely insisted that she follow him so that he can get her to the safe location where she can wait the raid out until its ended. Still freaking out, Maka complied and proceeded to follow the man to the safe location. Right after she got in there, Maka began hoping that nothing bad would happen to her family; her husband Ryoga and her daughter Momo meant more to her than anything else, and she'd be heartbroken if something were to happen to either of them.

Maka jumped a bit in her seat where she sat in a plush leather armchair when she heard a very big something, perhaps more than one very big something, crash through a wall somewhere in her family's mansion. She then heard the roars of battle, accompanied by the roars of dragon form Ryukyu and what had to be that large multi-tailed fox made of golden fire. The wealthy woman shivered a bit out of fear, worried as to where the rest of this day would lead her.

* * *

"I found where those traitors are!" Dabi, Spinner, Toga, Skeptic and Kurogiri all turned around and saw their fellow Mr. Compress gesture for them to follow him, "This way! We can kick their asses together!" The rest of what remained of the League of Villains as a whole wanted to find the five rank and file members, all of them being previous mercenaries that had worked for the League's financial supplier, who got away from the infighting that resulted in the death of every last other rank and file member.

That covered both the other fodder villains that were former mercenaries, and villains that were fodder forces from the USJ attack, along with a few randoms that had been recruited since the base form of the League of Villains that Dabi wanted was formed. It turns out, just as Dabi had suspected, that the former mercenaries laid their true loyalties with the Mysterious Benefactor, and had all willingly turned on the League the moment that they were told to. Thankfully, the rest of the rank and file were loyal to Dabi and the other commanding members.

Dabi, along with the rest of the command structure, were pursuing the last five mercenary members with the intent on killing all five for the betrayal. The League was down to six, but that was the last thing on any of their minds as the others caught up to Mr. Compress, who was about to turn the corner. However, all six of them stopped in their tracks when they all felt an obscene amount of bloodlust emanating from around the corner. That was followed by all five of the mercenaries crying out in pain as they sounded like they were being butchered like livestock to the slaughter.

The bloodlust died down, and when Dabi and the other five villains walked around the corner, what they saw surprised them; Stain the Hero Killer, standing before the corpses of all five of the mercenary men that they were previously chasing. "They let a fake hero that I was aiming to kill get away," Stain remarked, swinging his katana with a swift motion to flick all blood off of it, "And I recognize all of them as those mercenary assholes who work for the man that watched with relish as a young boy hung to death. If their lives were yours for you six to claim, I'm sorry for stealing your kills."

"…Actually, we don't really care how they died," Dabi said, "We just wanted them all dead. We only wanted to kill them because we thought it would be the easiest and quickest way to ensure we get what we wanted."

"They turned traitor on the League of Villains, along with all other rank and file members that had previously worked as mercenaries for the League's financial supplier," Mr. Compress explained, "The members that were loyal to us fought back, and everyone except the five here who escaped that infighting was killed."

The Hero Killer looked down at the bodies of the mercenaries that he had killed just now. He spat in disgust as he turned his head to the side. "They were weak." Looking up from his five latest victims, Stain regarded the six remaining members of the League of Villains. "…So what all do you plan to do now?" Stain asked, "All of your minions are dead. Will you six go about recruiting more? Or try to operate as a party of six for the time being?"

The six villains turned to look at one another, giving each other knowing looks. The silence was broken when Dabi turned to look at Stain. "…Actually, there's something that the six of us all have in mind, but it's something we want to wait on for a bit. We would have acted on it the moment we caught and killed all the traitors that fled the infighting, but given you saved us all of the trouble just now, we have to wait until certain persons we need are available."

Stain nodded in understanding as he returned his katana to its scabbard on his back. "Very well, villains. You all have stronger wills than most that I have encountered, so I will trust that you all know what you're doing." Stain then turned to face away from the villains. "…That fake hero who got away is actually the last true fake hero that's in society. All others have either died by my hand, been retired by my hand or actually cleaned their acts up enough that I'm willing to let them live."

"The last true fake hero?" Spinner repeated, sounding a bit confused by the words of his idol, "What do you mean by that, Stain? And when you do kill that fake, what do you plan to do since all of your work will be done?"

The Hero Killer gently shook his head as his back was facing the six villains. "…I intend to go to a secluded shore alone, where I can sit down on the sand and enjoy watching the sun set." Dabi and the others were not going to argue with Stain; he had done so much work to rid Japan of all the fakes who had the nerve to call themselves heroes, that it was only logical that the first thing he would want to do after he completed his work was to rest.

Before any of the villains could ask for more details, Stain took off in a flash, surprising them with his speed given that he doesn't have a speed quirk. With the six of them alone now, the lot of them turned to look at one another. "…Well guys," Dabi said, a hint of somberness in his tone, "Let's head back to the base."

"I want to make flower circlets to put on all of the villainesses who were loyal to us," Toga remarked sadly as she proceeded to follow all of the guys out of the alleyway, "I'm starting with Hinata and Levy."

* * *

The pro heroes that were leading U.A students in the raid on the Yaoyorozu family's mansion were surprised by the number of mercenaries that were there already, with Hizashi yelling out that he just got word that more were on their way to the mansion. "Hey now, what do we have here?" a mercenary said as he eyed Kaminari, one of the students in Hizashi's squad. Raising his right arm and making a pointed bone lance grow out of his palm, the mercenary said, "I think that you'll make good for a corpse to-"

"THAT'S MY BOYFRIEND, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"

The mercenary that was threatening Kaminari was blown back by a blast of sound waves, throwing him right into a window that he crashed out of; lucking it was a ground floor window. Kaminari turned to see Kyoka, who was also on Hizashi's squad. The rock music lover looked very clearly rattled, as if she were deathly afraid of what could have happened if that mercenary had been successful in striking Kaminari.

The electric quirk user gave Kyoka a thumbs up and a smile. "Thanks for the save."

Kyoka ran up to Kaminari, grabbed him by his hand. "Come on, Kaminari! We still have to help Hizashi-sensei, Tenya, Sato and Juzo fight some of the mercenaries that are coming!" Kaminari nodded in agreement as he ran along with his girlfriend, keeping in mind what she had shouted as she struck the mercenary who was about to strike him.

He couldn't help but wonder in amusement how funny it would be to see Kyoka's face when he reminded her of what she had said.

…

A number of mercenaries, a mix of quirked and quirkless, were attacking both Kirishima and Tetsutetsu, both of them in their respective hard forms and tanking all of the hits that were thrown at them. Fat Gum, the pro hero that they were assigned to, was also helping them with tanking the hits. "Grr, screw this noise!" one of the mercenaries said as he put his hands together, one over the other as a sphere of ice began to form.

He threw the conjured ice sphere right at Kirishima, striking him in the face but startling him more than hurting him. Even so, the crimson-haired boy let out a surprise yelp before going right into Red Riot Unbreakable. "Oh, a wise guy, huh?" the ice quirk mercenary said as he conjured another ice sphere but a bigger one this time, "Well then, how about we crank up the power and see how well you can take a large mass of-"

The ice quirk mercenary was cut off when he began coughing violently, as if he was having great difficulty breathing. Similarly, the other mercenaries that were attacking Kirishima, Tetsutetsu and Fat Gum also began coughing and struggling to breathe. They all proceeded to fall to their hands and knees before rolling over onto the floor, as mushrooms began growing on all of them, as well as a few small ones tumbling out of their mouths. With all hostiles that were attacking them laid low, the two hard boys and Fat Gum turned around to regard Kinoko, who was the third U.A. student on Fat Gum's squad.

"Hey, just so you know I like my mushrooms cooked and served to me at a meal, not grown inside of me with the intent to asphyxiate me," Fat Gum said in a self-amused joking manner.

The mushroom girl of class 1-B blushed a little bit in embarrassment. "S-Sorry, sir. It's just that I kind of freaked out when that ice quirk mercenary struck Eijiro right in the face with one of his ice spheres."

Fat Gum didn't mind at all, and even laughed a bit in amusement. "Hey Red Riot," Fat Gum said as turned to face Kirishima, "You managed to get yourself one hell of a girlfriend!" Kirishima, as well as Kinoko, both proceeded to blush out of embarrassment, but that just made Fat Gum, as well as Tetsutetsu, laugh in amusement. But the laughing was stopped short when Fat Gum and three of his squad members heard a fourth member, Sakaki, cry out as she struggled with one of the mercenaries.

Over where she was fighting, the fat cat girl had her hands locked into the hands of a somewhat taller mercenary who was notably muscular, his ability to keep up with Sakaki, whose quirk gave her increased physical strength, a clear sign that he had a strength quirk himself. "I have to admit, fatty," the muscular mercenary sneered at Sakaki, "You're able to keep up pretty well for an ugly fatass."

"The fuck did you just say about my girlfriend, you son of a bitch?"

The muscular mercenary didn't see the boy who spoke up just now, but he shouted in response to that voice, "Wait a minute, you're actually willing to-" The muscular mercenary stopped short as a black, emotionless wide-eyed expression took him over. All of his efforts suddenly went slack as he lost all ability to do anything. He was like a puppet with all of the strings cut. Since he was no longer struggling with her, Sakaki let him go, just in time to see her boyfriend Shinso, who was the fifth and final member of Fat Gum's squad, walk up and join her.

"Yeah, my quirk will make apprehending a lot of these fuckers easy," Shinso said to Sakaki, leaning forward to plan a quick kiss on her right cheek, eliciting a cute giggle out of her as a result. The brainwasher turned to look at the man that he had just brainwashed, giving him a firm, serious look. "Sakaki, we're going to have to leave this one to Fat Gum or one of the other pro heroes or Sengoku," Shinso said, "He'll only stay brainwashed until he's jolted, and it would take a lot of us who are students at U.A. to handle him effectively."

Sakaki nodded in agreement, and both she and Shinso were more or less pushed out of the way by Fat Gum as he proceeded to take on the muscular mercenary, striking him hard enough to jolt him out of his brainwashing and catching him by surprise. As the BMI Hero fought the muscular mercenary, Shinso and Sakaki were joined by Kirishima, Kinoko and Tetsutetsu, all five of them seeing as Fat Gum danced circles around the muscular mercenary in the fight.

* * *

"Hey Momo!" In another part of the mansion, Ryukyu and her squad were fighting a number of mercenaries. The mercenaries were rather easy for the Dragoon Hero to deal with, partly because one of the people on her squad was Yaoyorozu; even though his daughter was one of the heroes who was part of the raid, Ryoga said that under no circumstances is she to be harmed, saying that he'll get her to see reason later. Because of the orders, the mercenaries were wary of fighting the team she was on, out of fear that one of them might hurt her and incur her father's wrath.

After calling out to Yaoyorozu, Ryukyu said, "Where the hell could that father of yours be hiding here in the mansion?"

"I have no clue!" Yaoyorozu called back as she struck a quirkless mercenary upside his head with a staff that she made, "Most likely in his private study or his big office that he uses when he has meetings here! The study is located on the second floor behind two large and tall wooden doors with golden highlights, and the office is located on the third floor behind a single large and tall door with a black sign with gold lettering identifying it as his office!"

"I'll take the private study!" Kamui Woods called out as he ran on ahead, leading Koda, Sen, Shihai, Nirengeki and Kojiro along with him.

"My boys and I will handle the office!" Endeavor called out, following Kamui Woods and his party while leading Izuku, Bakugo, Todoroki, Akuma and Artemis.

As the parties of heroes disappeared up the stairs, Ryukyu and her party saw that they were joined by Edgeshot and his party, which consisted of Shoji, Tsukasa, Kurama, Manga and, most of all, Aggro. At least a few of the leading pro heroes made a remark about how Edgeshot had the 'most Japanese team'. "You ladies need any assistance?" Edgeshot asked as he looked up at the large draconic form of the Dragoon Hero.

"We could really use the help since it would free some of us up to try and track down Momo's mother," Ryukyu remarked, turning around to smack a few mercenaries away with her draconic tail, "Getting to her and getting her away from the danger is a priority according to the police!"

"I can find my mother," Yaoyorozu said as she took out her cell phone, "She always, and I really mean _always_, has her cell phone on her person, so I can just call her and ask her where she is."

Ryukyu nodded in understanding. She jerked her head at the rest of her squad, which consisted of Uraraka, Tsuyu, Eunice (her noise-cancelling headphones were on) and Itsuka. "Girls, you all go with Momo," the Dragoon Hero ordered while smacking away another mercenary, "I will stay here and help Edgeshot and his team fight the mercenaries in this area!"

The others all nodded in understanding (Eunice was barely able to hear through her headphones), and all of them proceeded to run along with Yaoyorozu. The wealthy girl made sure that she was behind Uraraka, in case any of the mercenaries wanted to try to kill her since she's still more or less a target for them to take down. With how Yaoyorozu had it set up, Uraraka couldn't be hit unless Yaoyorozu herself was hit first.

It also had the benefit of spiting her father, which was something that Yaoyorozu was very much in the mood to do now.

Yaoyorozu pulled out her phone, called up her mother. "Mom!" Yaoyorozu practically yelled as soon as she heard Maka's voice on the other end, "Where are you right now?"

"Oh, I'm in the safe room located closest to the patio I like to sit on outside while I enjoy a morning drink," Maka replied, "Momo, sweetie, what's going-"

"I know where that's located," Yaoyorozu said, cutting her mother off, "I'll be seeing you shortly!" The ponytailed girl ended the call right there and then, slipping her cellphone away as she continued to run with the girls. "I need you all to follow me," Yaoyorozu said, "I know where the room that my mother is in is located! Itsuka, take over my position to make sure that Uraraka is protected just in case!" The class rep of 1-B said nothing, only nodding a few times in the affirmative as she took over Yaoyorozu's role while the wealthy girl herself took the lead in driving her group right to where they needed to go.

* * *

Ryoga was seated at his desk in his office, a whole lot of his men all standing right around his office's door with no intent to let anyone in. Even if someone tried to come in, the sheer number of men would ensure that, at the very least, Ryoga himself would have ample time to get away to avoid being caught by the heroes. Hence why the wealthiest man in Japan was far from worried about his own fate.

The men surrounding the front door all moved a bit, mostly out of confusion, as they heard someone standing outside the door shout something out. "CHA…LA…HEAD…CHA…LA!" Suddenly, a large beam of energy blasted through the door, smashing it to smithereens and going on to barrel through a good portion of the men that stood there, even going so far as to knock a lot of them out. As many of the men tried to regather themselves, the same voice who had shouted on the other side of the door said, "Endeavor, guys, you all better cover your eyes for this one I'm about to do!"

Many of the men, as well as Ryoga himself, were barely able to react when they saw a boy who looked like a bluish humanoid semi-insect person hold his hands on either side of his head so that his fingers, which were fanned out, were right in line with his face. "Lunar Flash!" Suddenly, a large flash of blinding light emanated from the exoskeletoned boy, blinding most of the men as well as Ryoga, leaving a good number of them all stunned.

Even after the flashing light faded, those who were stunned by it were still vulnerable, thus allowing the exoskeletoned boy and his allies, with one of them having to be Endeavor since the exoskeletoned boy called the Flame Hero's name out, to swiftly take out all of Ryoga's men who were in his office with him. As he struggled to recover from the blinding, the wealthy man felt someone quickly grab him by the front of his neck, hoist him up, then proceeded to run until they had slammed Ryoga's back into a wall.

A few seconds after that, Ryoga's vision recovered just enough for him to stare directly into the face of Endeavor, who looked none too pleased to see him. "No way in hell you and me will be in-laws now, Ryoga," Endeavor spat bitterly, the only thing keeping chills from going up the wealthy man's spine while he was under Enji's angry glare being his (Ryoga's) own pride.

"You really are throwing away your only surefire way to keep yourself in the top spot on the charts indefinitely," Ryoga said defiantly, realizing now that his fate was sealed, "The influence the both of us have when combined would have been enough to bring all of the nation under our shared umbrella, End-"

*THWHACK*

Endeavor cut Ryoga off by slugging him really hard in the stomach, making the wealthy man spill the contents of his stomach. "…That was for the time that you made my son's girlfriend highly uncomfortable, you disgusting bastard," the Flame Hero sneered in disgust as Ryoga passed out from the pain of the attack. As they watched Endeavor slowly bring the defeated man back down, Izuku and his schoolmates breathed a sigh of relief.

They had just taken out the very man who had been behind so much of what all has happened as of late. The man who wanted one of their own dead, had killed the younger sibling of another (the boy was resurrected by Sengoku, but still), had employed a squad of mercenaries to besiege U.A. during a school festival, bankrolled the League of Villains (although Izuku knew that said villains more or less were betraying their financial supplier), and overall sought to ruin the lives of so many others, all for the sake of his own pride and greed.

Granted, some of the fighting in the raid was still going on, but with the man behind everything beaten, the remaining mercenaries were bound to fold and yield to the pro heroes. From there, it would only be a matter of time before everyone was carted off to wherever it would be that they would go to. For the quirked mercenaries, they would go to the various villain prisons in Japan, with the new improvements made to Tartarus ensuring there wouldn't be another prison break.

As for the quirkless mercenaries and Ryoga, however? They would go to jail.

* * *

By the time that the police began to swarm the Yaoyorozu mansion, the overall forces that were answering to Ryoga were starting to dwindle down. Most of them were either captured or had been knocked out, although Sengoku did accidentally kill a few of them. One kill that Sengoku scored was on purpose though, but that was a self-defense kill that, had Aggro not taken that mercenary's life, said mercenary would have killed both Reiko and Pony, who were on Mt. Lady's team with Ibara, Habuko and Yosetsu, in one go.

Todoroki and Bakugo, upon hearing what the Samurai Hero did, both bro-hugged him out of thanks for saving the lives of their respective girlfriends.

Since all of the fighting was over, Yaoyorozu and the other girls she was on a team with were able to bring Maka out of hiding. The woman was briefed on what all had transpired by Naomasa when he and two other officers found her and her daughter. Maka was completely shocked to hear about what all her husband had apparently done, nearly fainting from shock on more than one occasion as she was told about everything.

There were so many arrests that had to be made that more armored police vans, as well as additional quirk-suppressing gear, had to be brought in to handle everyone. Some body bags also had to be produced to carry the mercenaries that Sengoku killed, although he ended up being issued full pardons for all of those killings, given the circumstances that surrounded them. As for some particularly beaten mercenaries, some ambulances had to be called in to take them in to get some medical treatment.

As everything was being gathered and cleaned up by police, other public service workers, and a few additional pro heroes who arrived on the scene, the pro heroes who led the raid all gathered on the front lawn of the Yaoyorozu family's mansion. "Good job, everyone," Aizawa said as he and the others all addressed the forty-nine U.A. students and Aggro, "I know that this had been a very difficult task for you all, Yaoyorozu in particular, but we were able to accomplish what all we needed to do, and without any serious injuries."

"Actually, Aizawa-sensei," Koda said as he raised his right hand, "Kamui Woods was killed by some mercenaries while protecting me, Sen, Shihai, Nirengeki and Kojiro, but we were able to get Sengoku to resurrect him." Aggro, from where he stood, nodded in confirmation.

Shrugging, Aizawa said, "…Aside from one death which was reversed anyway, nothing serious happened. All in all, I'd call that a win."

The rocky-like animal lover nodded in agreement with his homeroom teacher. "Yeah, I would have to agree with that, Aizawa-sensei." Suddenly sensing something, Koda looked around and saw that some of his classmates, as well as a few of the 1-B students, were all looking at him. "…Umm, what?" Koda asked, more confused than anything, "What's wrong, guys? I didn't say anything weird, did I?"

"Dude, that's what you sound like?!" Bakugo exclaimed, "Holy crap! Your voice sounds weird as balls, Animal Rock!"

"Yeah, the Bakugo boy has a point on your rocky-looking student, Aizawa," Mirko said as she turned to face the underground hero, "His voice sounds weird coming from someone that has his appearance." Gesturing to herself, "I, on the other hand, sound awesome, as do the five girls that I led in the raid." Nodding once in confidence, the Rabbit Hero said, "Indeed, I would say that Mina, Setsuna, Hatsume, Yui and Aoyama are some of the loveliest girls that U.A. has to-"

Aizawa clapped a bit to get Mirko's attention, cutting her off mid-sentence. Pointing to Aoyama, the underground hero said in a dry tone, "Aoyama's a boy, Mirko."

The Rabbit Hero, her eyes wide with shocked surprise, pointed with her left hand to where Aoyama stood. "That's a boy?!" Mirko exclaimed out of sheer surprise, "You've got to be totally shitting me, Aizawa! I thought that Aoyama was a girl!"

A good number of the U.A. students all began to laugh; some laughed at Mirko (like Akuma, Artemis, Monoma and surprisingly enough Tenya) for her blatant confusion and mixing things up, and some at Aoyama (Bakugo, all of Bakugo's squad, Kyoka, Pony and Kinoko) because he was mistaken for a girl by a top-ranked pro hero. As the twinkling boy blushed with annoyed embarrassment, Aizawa let out a resigned sigh.

"Mirko, please stop deriding my students."

END, CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

Author's notes;

With that, the big bad of this story as a whole has been dealt with for good. No longer will he be causing trouble for everyone else in the story at large. Even so, things are far from over, both in the story and even in this arc. A few more things have to be handled here before the next arc can be started up, mostly related to the clean-up effort for more than one mess.

Also, due to all of the circumstances, Samidare never got to have his birthday party. He'll be having a late birthday in the next chapter or two, so don't worry about that. And there will even be a few special guests that will be coming to the party. The next chapter or two (not sure at this point right now) will be a bit of a whirlwind as everything gets squared away in order to clear things up so that the next arc won't have anything weight from this arc tying it down.

The next arc is going to have plenty of its own weight, rest assured.


	64. Chapter 64

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter sixty-four: Society begins to heal

He sat alone in the police questioning room, nothing but the faint, dim buzzing of a light fixture hanging overhead. His hands were handcuffed to the metal table he was seated at. Never did it ever even cross his mind that he would ever be so broken, so humiliated, so…so defeated. But here he was, taken down while he was on cusp of achieving the greatest height that he had ever known, taken down by the pro heroes who led a large number of heroes-in-training that were students over at U.A. High School.

One of those very U.A. students being his very own daughter, no less.

He perked up a bit when he heard the door to the questioning room he was in open. He saw Detective Naomasa walk in, accompanied by Aizawa, the pro hero Eraserhead who was also a U.A. teacher and one of the pros who led the raid that ultimately resulted in his defeat. The beaten man narrowed his gaze as he regarded the duo, his glare making it clear to the both of them that he believed them to view his fall from grace as the height of hilarity.

"You've got quite a lot to answer for, Ryoga Yaoyorozu," Naomasa remarked as he sat down at the table, sitting directly in front of the disgraces business mogul, "A lot of questions that a lot of people want answered."

"I suppose you two both think that all of this is funny."

Both Naomasa and Aizawa, giving off knowing looks that made it clear they did not find anything funny, that they wanted to keep to the business of why they were questioning Ryoga, continued on as if the defeated man had not said that bit. "Now, I think that we ought to ask the big, overall question." Naomasa looked up from the clipboard that he had brought with him. He gave the defeated man a wry look, one that held a hint of resigned disappointment.

"Why?"

Ryoga let off a sigh, one that held a small bit of surprising amusement at it all. He leaned back as far as he could, considering how his hands were still handcuffed to the table he was seated at. "Why did I do everything that I had done, I suppose you mean." Naomasa, as well as Aizawa from where the underground hero leaned against the wall behind the police detective, nodded in the affirmative while regarding Ryoga.

The look that Ryoga gave the two men, police and hero alike, was a look of casual amusement, one that sent a bit of a shiver down Naomasa's spine. "…I believe the real question here is why wouldn't I?" Ryoga gave off a chuckle, showing an expression that was rather calm and accepting of what all was going on despite himself. "…Why wouldn't I do what it took to not only get ahead, but make sure I stay ahead, stay above all others. There was only room for one at the top, and I've never been one to know how to share, much less allow anyone to butt into my personal space."

"Let's start with one of the more specific questions," Aizawa spoke up, getting Ryoga to turn to face him, "You sent your mercenary bastards after one of my students, Ochaco Uraraka, at least twice that the police and pro heroes are aware of. And we're also willing to bet that the murder of Uraraka's mother is also related, given the timeframe of everything." Aizawa crossed his arms over his chest, giving Ryoga a firm glare. "…Why did you try to kill an innocent teenage girl, try to ruin her life?"

The defeated mogul shrugged his shoulders as he hummed a chuckle. "…Those lower-class rats should have been content to stay in their squalor, you know. But no, they decided that they had to get uppity, had to get attention drawn to that little business of theirs. Because of how much attention their construction company got thanks to that little commercial that came out a while ago, the monopoly that I had in the field was greatly disrupted."

He gave Naomasa and Aizawa a casual look. "That's why I decided to try and send the couple who owns that upstart business a message by sending some of my men after their little brat. And when both attempts failed because others got in the way, I had those little chore monkeys in that group of villains kill the woman who co-ran the place with her husband. I never got it from that gray-haired fellow with the hands on his costume which of his men he sent to kill the Uraraka woman, though."

Aizawa's eyes widened as he heard Ryoga so casually confess his reason. "You…you decided to try and kill Uraraka off twice, decided to kill her mother off, simply because the struggling business that their family owned was revitalized? You ruined the lives of an entire family simply because they got in your way?" Aizawa couldn't believe what he had heard; he hadn't felt so utterly disgusted since a very angry Shinso and an enormously outraged Emi had told him why little Eri was crying up a storm one day when he when over to check on the little horned girl who was basically his (and now at that point Emi's as well) foster daughter.

"There's something else we want to know for now," Naomasa asked. He pulled something out from underneath the paper that was clipped to the clipboard that he held. Sliding the item across the table so that Ryoga could see it, it was a picture of Samidare Asui. "We got a video recording that was submitted to us by one of Aizawa's and Sekijiro's students over at U.A., which was given to them by an anonymous source. The video recording showed you and a number of your men standing around as you all watched the boy in this picture hang to death."

"Why did you want him killed off?" Aizawa asked, growing just a little more bitter at the defeated man that sat before him and Naomasa.

The defeated man himself shrugged indifferently at the question, at the very notion that he had arranged for the death of an innocent child. "…I actually have two reasons for wanting to have that boy killed off, although I didn't know that the boy was responsible for the second reason until a few weeks before I finally saw justice happen to him." Not that Ryoga cared, but the glares of both Aizawa and Naomasa narrowed because the beaten mogul had just referred to his arranging to have Samidare killed off as 'justice'.

He leaned back casually in his seat, gave the two men something of an amused look. "First off, a while ago my wife and I were leaving a fancy restaurant when we saw a group of various pro heroes were rushing through that area at the time. Our attention was diverted as we got into the limo I had waiting because we heard some little brat cry out while having a temper tantrum. I ended up seeing that boy right there, and I assumed he was having a fit because he saw a hero that he liked but said hero didn't stop for him to say hi to or whatever. Regardless, the crying of that brat soured my wife's mood, and as a result she wasn't in the mood to offer up that night."

"You…" Naomasa said, a bit surprised at Ryoga's reason, "…You had a child killed, watched said child hang to death, because he had a meltdown which prompted your wife to refuse to have sex with you later that night?"

"I actually know about the hero rush that you mention, as I was actually part of it," Aizawa said to the beaten man. He gave Ryoga a firm, bitter glare, his gaze narrowed. "I also personally know Samidare, given that his older sister is another one of my students. I can tell you right now that he didn't have a meltdown because a hero he liked was in that rush but didn't stop for him to look at. In fact, Samidare's favorite pro hero, the only one he seriously likes, wasn't even a part of that stampeed as we all rushed off to face a large mass of low-level villains that were trying to rob a bank."

The underground hero crossed his arms over his chest, his disappointed look unmistakable. "Samidare Asui had that meltdown because of the sheer amount and volume of noise that the rush of pro heroes generated by going through that area had made him freak out. He's autistic, which among other things gives him a heightened sensitivity to noise. I was able to later confirm all of that because his sister who is one of my students told me."

"What's the other reason you had him killed?" Naomasa asked, a hint of curiosity peeking through the visage of bitter disappointment.

Ryoga shrugged indifferently. "I found out that the boy in the picture here was responsible for disrupting one of the main lines I was able to allocate funding to the chore monkeys in the group of villains that I had working for me on various jobs on and off. He discovered and blew the lid on the hemorrhaging of funds out of one of my many businesses, and because of that the villains had to do more private jobs for me."

"Wait a minute," Naomasa said, "That sounds like the incident from over at Yaoyorozu Offices from a while ago." The defeated mogul nodded twice in confirmation. The look that Naomasa gave Ryoga was now more curious and surprised. "…You mean to tell me that the hemorrhaging of money from Yaoyorozu Offices was _intentional_ on your part in order to send a base allocation of funding to the League of Villains?"

Ryoga nodded a few more times in confirmation. Naomasa and Aizawa both let out resigned sighs as the former got up from where he sat at the table opposite of the beaten man. "We'll be asking more later," the police detective said, "For now, we're going to have you sent back to your holding cell."

"I'll beat this, you know," Ryoga remarked, sounding so casual in how confident he was.

Aizawa scoffed as he shook his head. "With all the evidence that the police and pro heroes got confirming a lot of your atrocities, I highly doubt that you'll get out of this. Even if you do, your reputation has been shot to the point that you'll never be able to recover all that you have grown accustomed to ever again. Additionally, I got it that your wife wants to file for divorce, and both she and your daughter want nothing more to do with you."

Just a smidge above a hint of angered bitterness entered Ryoga's gaze. "They'll see reason. They'll see that we're so far above everyone else that-"

"Your daughter contributed more to helping make the commercial for Uraraka Construction than any other U.A. student."

Ryoga stopped short when Aizawa said that last line before the underground hero turned around and walked out of the police questioning room, unable to tolerate being in there for any longer as he had reached his limit with the defeated man. Naomasa called for a few police officers to come in and escort Ryoga to his cell. Ryoga was bitter, angry at how he had lost so much, and all just because other people wanted a piece of what was his by right, a piece of what none of them had any sort of right to.

* * *

When Uraraka got a call from her dad that ended up being from the psychotic schoolgirl Toga, the gravity girl, bringing with her Izuku, Tsuyu, Todoroki, and Tenya, plus Aggro Ace this time, went right over to the home where she lived with her dad. When the party of six arrived, they saw Toga, Dabi and Spinner hanging out in the living room with Uraraka's dad, similar to the last time the three villains were at the Uraraka residence. However, Mr. Compress, Kurogiri and Skeptic were all also there.

"…Yeah," Aggro remarked as he spotted Dabi, Spinner and Toga, "I recognize those three from the incident that occurred back in Royal Woods that involved the late Tetherby."

Dabi arched a wry brow at what the Samurai Hero mentioned. "You're from that chaotic realm of pandemonium that Spinner, Toga and I have no desire to return to?"

Aggro, who had been reaching over his right shoulder to pull out one of his bokken from the cloth carrying case he wore over his back, lowered his hand a bit. "…I suppose Luna's old music tutor and all of his friends shook you up that much, huh?"

"We actually encountered them during the villain siege on the city," Spinner said, "The pink-haired man and the man with the long blonde ponytail ripped off all of their clothes to reveal they wore grass skirts and beaded necklaces underneath, and then they proceeded to perform a haka war dance! Those old shinobi from one of the elemental nations are crazy!" Dabi nodded briskly a few times in agreement with his lizardman villain friend.

"Yeah, I heard about how Mr. Fisher was seen running across the city during the villain siege while he was for some odd reason dressed like a maoi warrior," Aggro remarked, "But that's beside the point." The male Ace twin gave all six of the villains a firm look. "Uraraka and her classmates asked me to come along with them after Uraraka had gotten a call from the one among you she identified as Toga."

The psychotic schoolgirl herself raised a hand. "That would be me."

Aggro nodded in acknowledgement to the villainess before returning his attention to the six villains as a whole. "I was told by Uraraka and her friends that the six of you…actually wanted to express thanks to her and her friends?"

Dabi nodded once in confirmation as he stepped forward. "Yeah. It's thanks to her and her friends, primarily Izuku Midoriya, that the bastard we now know is called Ryoga Yaoyorozu has been taken down."

"I actually had something of a curse mark on my person that was placed on me by one of Ryoga's men a while ago using a quirk," said Mr. Compress as he raised a hand, "But the curse mark broke when word of what Ryoga had done got out, so now I'm no longer bound. I can now tell anyone who'd care to listen what all I know in regards to the dealings I had with him."

"There's something I'd like to know, if anyone here would care to explain," Aggro remarked to everyone in the living room as a whole. To the villains, Aggro said, "I know that you all drew a lot of your funding from Ryoga to your group. Why would you go and betray your financial supplier, though?"

Spinner let out a resigned sigh as he proceeded to speak up. "He was a tyrant of a man. He gave us no freedom when we got funding from him, had us constantly under enough threat to keep the lot of us from going against his will. Did you know that the real reason he had one of his men shoot and kill Re-Destro is apparently because Re-Destro unknowingly killed Ryoga's daughter during the villain siege on the city a while ago, and that he only let the rest of us live because said daughter was someone returned back to life?"

The five U.A. students all expressed surprise at the notion that Spinner just told them about. Aggro, on the other hand, had a casually curious expression on his face as he held a hand over his chin. "…Oh yeah, Momo Yaoyorozu is Ryoga's daughter." Looking to the six villains, Aggro said, "Yeah, my friend Bobby was the one who resurrected Momo. His quirk El Fuerte is comparable to my quirk Amaterasu."

"Your friend can resurrect the dead?" Toga said, looking a bit surprised, "Quickly! You need to call him and get him over here to Japan to bring back that cute kid that Dabi, Spinner and I are friends with! I don't want him to-"

Toga was cut off when Aggro held up a hand, making her take pause. Lowering his hand, the Samurai Hero said, "Bobby isn't the only one who can cast resurrection. Like I said, Bobby's El Fuerte is comparable to my Amaterasu."

"You can do it too?!" Toga nearly screamed, "Then you-"

Once more, Aggro cut off the psychotic schoolgirl with a gesture. "…I have long since already returned Samidare Asui back to life, doing so a little less than an hour after he passed." The six villains, Dabi, Spinner and Toga most of all, looked surprised at the news, with Toga especially looking like she might start to cry softly out of happiness. "Yeah, his death was never reported, so as far as Japan at large knows, he was simply missing before he was found in a bit of a bad shape and rushed to the hospital."

The villains said nothing, although Toga did begin to softly cry a bit. This time, it was Izuku who looked to the villains, a look of cautious curiosity on his face. "…So what is it that you all plan to do now? It was reported that the mass number of villains that's been confirmed to have been your main force in the League had all killed each other, so things are down to just the six of you. I'm curious, especially since you're all here and called Uraraka and the rest of us over."

Dabi and the others all looked to one another, exchanging knowing looks. After the silence that passed between the six of them, the villains all turned to face Izuku, the other U.A. students, and Sengoku. "…The six of us have decided that, with the rest of the League dead and the fact that we're now free from being under the thumb of that son of a bitch Ryoga, we're all interested in turning ourselves in." The announcement from the blue-flame villain had caught the six heroes by complete surprise. Never would any of them have expected six of the most notorious at-large villains in Japan right now to collectively announce that they all want to surrender.

"We're serious, heroes," Kurogiri remarked, "After what all we've gone through as of late, we're just simply too disheartened to try to continue on. We all discussed it and agreed that, after we found the last five rank and file members of the League who turned on us so we can kill them for their role in the mass infighting that saw the rest of the fodder forces getting killed, the six of us would all surrender to the pro heroes. Of course, the Hero Killer tracked down and killed all five of the traitors before we got to them, so all we had to do was get some final issues of business squared away before we collectively turned ourselves in."

The five U.A. students still looked beyond shocked that the six villains before them actually wanted to surrender themselves to the pro heroes. Aggro, on the other hand, had a bit of an amused look on his face. "…You know, one of the reasons why I had been called over from the United States by the Japanese government is because they wanted my help in tracking down the four most dangerous villains that had recently escaped from Tartarus."

Aggro raised his right hand, pointed right at Kurogiri. "You're one of those four specified villains Kurogiri, alongside Moonfish, Muscular and Stain. Moonfish was actually defeated before I got here, and I killed Muscular when he was on his way to apparently try to kill Tsuyu's little brother. Technically, I'm still on that job, and I have permission to use lethal force on any and all of the four that I encounter." The Samurai Hero lowered his hand that he was using to point at Kurogiri with. "…But if you're truly serious about willingly turning yourself in, then I see no reason to kill you."

"That is reassuring to know," Kurogiri remarked with a nod of acknowledgement.

"So that is all why you guys called my friends and I here," Uraraka said, "You wanted to tell us about how you want to surrender so we can go about arranging it."

Skeptic nodded a few times. "Pretty much, yeah. We're even willing to offer what info we know about our dealings with Uncle Pennybags if that helps."

"It would be a considerable boon to the case that the police and pro heroes are trying to build against Ryoga Yaoyorozu," Tenya remarked, a look of consideration on his face as he held a hand over his chin. He was looking down at the floor a bit, but then he cast his gaze back up at the six villains that were in Uraraka's living room. "We're going to have to call in a few pro heroes to help handle the lot of you. Even though all of you are surrendering peacefully, there is still the fact that there's too many of you for one or two pro heroes to help the arresting police officers handle alone."

"Knowing my father," Todoroki began, "He'll undoubtedly want to be one of the-"

Todoroki was interrupted when Dabi pointed right at him. "Hell the fuck no," the blue-flame villain said, "The last thing I want is for Endeavor to sneer at us as he brings us in." Lowering his hand that he was pointing with, Dabi said, "There's actually something the six of us all have in mind, but first we need to ask miss big sis something."

Tsuyu perked up a bit when Dabi and the other villains all turned to face her. "What are your younger siblings' favorite pro heroes again?"

"Satsuki's favorite pro hero is Mirko," Tsuyu replied, her tone mildly curious, "And Samidare likes Ryukyu the best kero." Giving the villains a curious look, the frog-like girl asked, "I take it that you guys want Mirko and Ryukyu to be the pro heroes who help with your arrest?"

"We figure that if your younger siblings see their favorite pro heroes handle us while we're being arrested," Spinner began to explain, "And we tell them that we made some bad mistakes and that their idols are going to help us clean our acts up, then they may not be so afraid of us." He then gave a self-amused laugh. "…At least that's what we're hoping for."

"I'm going to have to be there as well to handle Kurogiri," Aggro remarked, "Given that he is one of my four targets. But other than that, I think that the pros can manage how you all want to turn yourselves in."

The six villains all nodded in understanding, with Kurogiri saying, "Fair enough. We'll be waiting for when everything is ready."

The five heroes-in-training and the one foreign quirked hero all nodded in acknowledgment as they saw the six villains calmly take their leave, with Toga supplying Izuku with a secure number that can be used to contact her and the others at when everything is ready for how the six villains want to turn themselves in. Toga gave a sincere hug to Tsuyu, saying that she and the others were all beyond happy that Samidare was back before she left with the guys. After the six villains were gone, Izuku and the others all knew that they had a bit of work ahead of themselves in order to get things ready to clear up some of the last major villainous threats to society.

END, CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

Author's notes;

Yeah, Dabi and the others are turning themselves in. Never thought you'd see a story where some of the biggest villains in the series would actually surrender to the pro heroes and police, huh? But aside from that, this chapter had a number of revelations that tie back to events that took place much further back in the story. But aside from all of that, things in this arc are getting very close to being wrapped up entirely. From what I figure, the next chapter will be the last in this arc before the next one can start up.

I'm not sure if I can make any promises on that right now though, given how there have been past instances where I had to push a few things off to further chapters.


	65. Chapter 65

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter sixty-five: Villains' end

He stood over the fake hero's corpse as it laid bleeding out in the alleyway. Stain, the infamous Hero Killer, gave off a self-amused smirk as he stood over the dead. This dead fake hero was of particularly great importance to Stain because she (yes, it was a female hero who Stain had just killed) was the last true fake hero. All others before her had either been killed by Stain's hand, had been retired by Stain's hand, or had cleaned up their act enough to be spared from the blade, the wrath, of the Hero Killer.

Now, since there were no more fakes, Stain felt that he could finally rest. His work, at least until another fake was suicidal enough to pop up, was done. Swinging his katana, Stain shook all the blood from it before he returned it to the scabbard over his back. "_…Heh, I never thought that I would actually get to this point in my life_," Stain thought as he considered everything that he had gone through in his work to purge the fakes who incorrectly assumed the title of hero from Japanese society. But now he found himself with more free time than he ever thought he would ever have.

Stain knew that there was one thing that he wanted to do, the first thing he decided that he would do once his work was done. But it was too early in the day for that yet, so Stain would hide out until it was time to enjoy his reward from him to him. With a jump, Stain got up from where he was crouched down and dashed off.

* * *

"What happened again, Kacchan?" Izuku asked as he, while he was on his way to a certain meeting, talked to Bakugo over the phone. The green-eyed boy sounded very alarmed, as well as particularly worried.

"I told you, Deku," Bakugo's voice barked from the other end, "The old hag was taken to the hospital by your mom and my dad. All I got from your mom is that the hag said something about feeling like she was on fire or some shit. Probably just a really bad fever or something like that."

Izuku couldn't help but worry; Bakugo's mother Mitsuki, despite how she's a little over twice Izuku's age, was his girlfriend. His first one, actually. Granted, their relationship isn't the most conventional in the world, and many would figure that it wouldn't work out all that well. But Izuku and Mitsuki were able to defy what all everyone expected, going on to being one of the foremost couples that anyone familiar with them knew of.

Whoever would have guessed it that a cinnamon roll of a person like Izuku would end up with a woman with the personality of Bakugo, with said woman probably being where Bakugo himself gets a lot of his attitude from? It boggles the minds of some.

Gently shaking his head, Izuku said, "Well I need to go handle a few things, but as soon as I can I'm going to call to let everyone know I'll be right over to see how Mitsuki is doing." Bakugo said that he understood, and told Izuku to try to be quick about it (not in those words; to be specific, the words were 'well then hurry the fuck up, Deku') before hanging up. Izuku sighed as he reached the location that he was on his way to.

U.A. High School.

The green-eyed boy made his way into the hero academy he attended, entered the main building and made his way over to Principal Nezu's office. Inside, Izuku found Nezu himself, along with Toshinori Yagi, aka All Might, and two of Izuku's teachers, Aizawa and Hizashi. Also in the office were Izuku's friends and classmates Uraraka, Tsuyu, Todoroki and Tenya. Leaning against the wall on the far right side (if you enter the room and face forward) was Aggro Ace, the Samurai Hero Sengoku. However, the three other persons in the room were a bit of a surprise.

Tsuyu's parents, Ganma and Beru, as well as Tsuyu's little brother Samidare.

"Sorry if I ran a bit late," Izuku said to everyone as he entered the room, closing the door behind him. He walked over to join his friends, and with that Nezu was able to begin the meeting.

The quirked animal principal cleared his throat before he spoke up. "This meeting is of a rather unconventional nature, I will admit," Nezu began, "But the topic of said conversation concerns the nature of the currently at-large villain Kurogiri, one of two remaining notable villains who had escaped from Tartarus in the recent prison break. Furthermore, it also involves five others who are affiliated with Kurogiri, those being Dabi, Spinner, Toga, Mr. Compress and Skeptic."

"Y-Yes, I am aware of three of them, Mr. Nezu," Beru remarked, "I encountered them at the mall a while ago while I was there with me and Ganma's two youngest children." The frog-like woman shuddered involuntarily. "I still can't believe villains had interacted with my children." On a similar note, Ganma nodded to show that he agreed with his wife's sentiments.

Nezu understood where the parents of a six-year-old and an eleven-year-old, as well as a sixteen-year-old, were coming from. "Yes, yes, I can understand why you would be so concerned about the safety of your children, Mr. and Mrs. Asui." Putting his paws together, Nezu went on, "And it is actually your children Samidare and Satsuki who the hero community have to give thanks to in regards to the six villains in question."

Both Ganma and Beru turned to look at Nezu, both of them looking confused and a bit curious as to what the principal of their oldest child's school was talking about. "Believe it or not, Mr. and Mrs. Asui, the surprising friendship that your two youngest had struck up with Dabi, Spinner and Toga, an influence that had spread to the other three, is one of the main reasons why all six have decided to turn themselves in."

The Asui couple both looked very much surprised; Samidare not so much, because he was only paying half-attention at best. "It's rather amusing in a way, if you think about it," the quirked animal principal remarked, "Six highly dangerous villains all willingly surrendering themselves to the pro heroes and police because they all care about a pair of school-age children and want to set as good of an example for them as they can manage."

"W-Wow," Ganma remarked, "I never would have guessed it that my youngest daughter and my only son would have played such a role in getting a number of villains off of the streets."

"Have they turned themselves in yet?" Beru asked.

Tsuyu got her parents' attention by gently shaking her head. "Not yet, mom and dad. They actually wanted to set some terms for how they turn themselves in kero."

"From what Hizashi and I got from your daughter on the matter," Aizawa remarked, "They want the pro heroes Ryukyu and Mirko to be the ones who help police handle taking them in. I believe it has to do with the fact that your two youngest children like Ryukyu and Mirko the best, and they want to say something along the lines of how they aren't really bad people, it's just that they made some really bad mistakes and that the two pros in question are going to help them clean up their act." Tsuyu nodded in the affirmative, confirming what the underground hero said.

"Also," Todoroki added as he piped up, "They don't want my father anywhere nearby while they let the police, Mirko and Ryukyu take them in." Again, Tsuyu nodded in confirmation.

Ganma and Beru turned to look at each other, with Beru leaning to whisper something to her husband. The toad-like man nodded in agreement, and then Beru turned to look at everyone from her first-born child's school. "That sounds reasonable enough," Beru remarked, "And I'm still surprised that me and Ganma's two youngest were the ones who managed to make a group of half a dozen villains aim to turn over a new leaf."

The toad-like man nodded in agreement,. "Yeah, I was admittedly rather outraged when I heard about how much danger Satsuki and Samidare were in, but now…" Ganma gently shook his head, still a bit surprised at how everything was turning out. "…Now I think that those six may be good role-models for Satsuki and Samidare to follow, provided of course that they all behave themselves from here on out."

Leaning to her other side to get Samidare's attention, Beru said, "Samidare, sweetie." Having heard someone speak to him directly, Samidare turned to look up at his mom. "Do you remember those three people that hung out with you, me and your younger sister at the mall a while ago?"

"They were really nice to me and Satsuki," Samidare said, "But big sis and her boyfriend say that they are bad guys. Satsuki and I can't see how they can be bad guys since they were so nice to us, and even helped take down that big pink villain guy." A hint of upset worry entered the sole Asui boy's expression. "…They aren't bad people, are they mom?"

Beru, with an understanding smile, gently shook her head. "…No, sweetie, they aren't bad people. They just made a few bad mistakes is all. That's why they all asked Mirko and Ryukyu to help them fix what they did." Samidare giggled a bit when his mom mentioned that his favorite pro hero, as well as his little sister's favorite pro hero, were going to help some friends of theirs try to make up for what they did.

Beru nodded in understanding of her son liking how his hero was going to help his friends. "Those people are worried that you and Satsuki may think poorly of them because they messed up," Beru said, "And they just want you and your sister to know that they are all very much sorry for all of the bad stuff that they had done."

The sole Asui boy nodded to show that he either understood or was following along. Suddenly, Samidare looked as if he was struck by a brilliant idea. He reached up and whispered something into Beru's ear, drawing a surprised look out of the frog-like woman. After her sone was done telling her what he had wanted to ask, Beru looked to the U.A. staff members that were in the meeting room.

"Samidare says that he wants to ask for something."

* * *

"Wait a minute," Mirko said as she followed Ryukyu around on U.A. grounds as they made their way over to Gym Gamma, "I thought that the birthday party for that frog girl's little bro was going to be at their family's place. Why is it being held at Gym Gamma?"

Shrugging indifferently, Ryukyu said, "Nezu said something about a higher number of party guests than was originally intended. But that doesn't matter to me." The Dragoon Hero tapped a fist into the palm of her other hand. "What I'm focusing on is helping to make a young boy happy at his birthday party." The two pro heroes, both of them the top ranked female pros in Japan, reached Gym Gamma, with Ryukyu opening the door so she and Mirko can go on inside. "I'm nothing if not a hero who makes an effort to let those who like her know that-"

Ryukyu, as well as Mirko, both paused when they saw how many people were at Samidare's birthday party. The Rabbit Hero paused because she was just plain confused, and the Dragoon Hero paused because although she knew there would be a lot of guests, she wasn't suite expecting so many like this. Not only that, but Ryukyu and Mirko both noticed that, among all of the guests at the birthday party, six of them were _known_, _at_-_large villains_.

Kurogiri and Skeptic were seen talking to Aizawa and Hizashi, with Aggro Ace standing nearby with that white-haired boy who was his protégé. Toga was seen talking to Tsuyu and Uraraka, Spinner was keeping an eye on Satsuki as well as Mandalay's cousin Kota and Aizawa's foster daughter Eri, Mr. Compress could be seen chatting it up with Ganma and Beru, and Dabi was seen talking to Izuku, Todoroki and Tenya, focusing mainly on the two-toned boy.

"…Uhh, we need to talk to the Asuis," Mirko said as she and Ryukyu looked around in confusion, "Because I'm not so sure if they-"

"Yay, Mirko is here!" Satsuki cheered out as she ran right over to the pro hero that she idolized, with Kota and Eri following after her. "Hey Mirko, guess what?" Satsuki said, "Some friends of me and my big brother's feel really bad about how they did bad things, and they want to try to be good again so they're going to ask you to help them!"

The two pro heroes looked confused, up until Nezu and Toshinori walked up to the both of them. "Believe it or not, the six villains here are going to turn themselves in," Nezu began, "In fact, some of them have already surrendered what weapons they had on their persons, although this mainly just applies to both Spinner and Toga surrendering their bladed weapons. Furthermore, the six villains here had asked that the two of you be the heroes who help the police bring the lot of them in."

"But Scary Fire Beard can't come!" Satsuki said, trying to sound firm, "He's a big mean stinky, and he scares big brother."

Mirko couldn't help but chuckle at what Satsuki said about who was very clearly Endeavor that she was talking about. As for Ryukyu, she looked around a bit, wondering just where the birthday boy was. The last time that she saw him, he was resting in secret at the hospital after he had been resurrected by Sengoku, following Samidare being found hanging dead from a noose in an abandoned warehouse. Because of all of that messy business, the original birthday party had to be canceled, hence why this belated birthday party was being thrown.

Eventually, the Dragoon Hero spotted Samidare, who was blindfolded and trying to swing at a pinata while Tokoyami and Artemis were watching. The blindfolded boy spun around a bit, and then he swung his stick right into Tokoyami's right thigh, doing so hard enough to make him kneel in pain while Artemis pointed and laughed. Dark Shadow even came out just to join Artemis in pointing and laughing at Tokoyami.

"Well, I'm glad to see that he's here to enjoy a birthday party at all," Ryukyu said, smiling a bit in a sincere manner. To Nezu and All Might, Ryukyu said, "Well, I think I should first go meet with his parents so I can ask them how exactly they want to go about having me showing up to their son's birthday part-"

"Hey dude, look," Artemis said to Samidare over where they were at the pinata area, "Isn't that your favorite pro hero right over there?" Removing his blindfold, Samidare looked over to where the exoskeletoned boy was pointing. Seeing Ryukyu, the sole Asui boy let out a surprised yelp before looking right down to the floor as he held his hands over his mouth, semi-turning from side to side out of embarrassment that the greatest hero ever (in his opinion) was here. With Artemis's announcement, a number of the people at the party who weren't already doing to turned to look and see that Ryukyu had come with Mirko. The two women couldn't help but both smile at what all was going on.

After that, the belayed birthday party went on; they had cake and ice cream (all cookies and cream flavored, as that's Samidare's favorite), played a few games, watched as Samidare unwrapped the presents he got (Beru and Tsuyu had a few words regarding Spinner wrapping his katana up and giving it to Samidare), and to top it all off, Samidare got to have his picture taken with Ryukyu. Given that there was enough space in Gym Gamma to do so, Dabi suggested that Ryukyu go into her dragon form so that Samidare can sit on her back and pretend to be a dragon rider, on the basis that it would make for an awesome photo opportunity.

Seeing that the idea was making Samidare's eyes practically sparkle with excitement, Ryukyu asked Ganma and Beru if it were okay, to which both consented, knowing that if Samidare did fall off by accident, one of the pros would save him before he hit the floor of Gym Gamma. Spinner even got the idea that Samidare could hold his katana while sitting on Ryukyu's back, to help further sell the image of a dragon-riding hero. And so it was the picture was taken, a picture of an eleven-year-old boy, holding a katana in his right hand as he sat on the back of a dragon.

Awesome.

…

The party got to late afternoon, just a bit before sunset, when things were wrapped up. At that point, a couple of police officers led by Detective Naomasa came into Gym Gamma and called for Dabi, Spinner, Toga, Skeptic, Kurogiri and Mr. Compress, given that the police came with warrants for their arrest. The six villains, all knowing that it was time, nodding in knowing manners as they all made their way over. Naomasa and his fellow police men all proceeded to arrest the villains and lead them out, with Ryukyu, Mirko and Sengoku (he was there to look after Kurogiri) assisting in handling the villains outside, where a few police cruisers and an armored police van waited.

Right as the villains all got outside with the police and the heroes, everyone stopped when they heard Samidare cry out. They saw the sole Asui boy run over to the villains, carrying six small shiny plastic bags that were purple in color and tied up at the tops. "They forgot to get party favor bags before leaving."

The scene, while a bit of a tearjerker since he was giving them to those he viewed as friends while said friends were being arrested, was also heartwarming in a way; Toga even went, "Aww," as she teared up a bit. Naomasa remarked that Samidare was doing good to keep an eye out to make sure those he cared about didn't miss out on any party experiences, and collected the party favor bags from Samidare while assuring him that they will get to Toga and the boys.

(The party favor bags ended up being given to the villains later that night at the prison that they were taken to, but they first had to be checked to make sure there was nothing that could be used to help one escape. It turned out all of them just contained a couple of pieces of candy each, as well as two temporary tattoos each and, surprisingly enough, one mood ring each. Naomasa felt a bit dirty that he had to check the party favor bags, but it was police procedure.)

As Aggro helped two of the police officers get Kurogiri into the armored police van, he was approached by another officer, who whispered something into his ear after getting his attention. Aggro walked over to Lincoln, told him to wait with the U.A. staff until he got back, then turned around and left. He already got the credit he needed in regards to subduing Kurogiri, so at that point there was nothing the Samurai Hero had to worry about that would require him to keep an eye on things at U.A., at least until he got back.

As the police vehicles drove away, Tsuyu and everyone else watched them depart. "Wow Samidare," Tsuyu remarked as she turned to regard her little brother, "Your birthday this year sure was something to write home about kero." Samidare nodded once in agreement, giving a mildly amused giggle as he did so.

* * *

It was sunset, a beautiful time of day as the skies above were a rich orange-like color that was mixed with a bit of the purplish dark that represented the nighttime sky that would be coming soon. Stain found himself alone on the sandy shore of the beach located near the wooded area, the very beach where those League of Villains fellows had that funeral pyre for their comrade who died. Nothing but the sounds of the waters before him were there to keep him company.

Stain, as he looked out into the sunset horizon, felt content, felt at peace. He found a good spot on the sand, halfway between the edge of the grassy grounds from the wooded area behind him and the edge of the waters. The Hero Killer slowly sat himself down on the spot he found and proceeded to simply look out over the ocean. His work was done; as of that moment, there were no more fakes illegitimately bearing the title of hero. All that he wanted to do now was to enjoy watching the sunset, letting out a content sigh as he did so.

He got a good bit of time of enjoying the beautiful view, at least thirty minutes. After that, he sensed someone approaching him from his left. Turning his head to see, the Hero Killer saw some samurai-looking fellow, wearing a seafoam green sleeveless haori long coat, approaching him with a knowing, serious look on his face. He was not anyone that Stain had ever seen much less could identify, but Stain could tell from the look on the samurai fellow's face why he was there on the beach.

He was there to collect him, killing him if he had to.

Stain got up from where he sat on the beach, turned to fully face the samurai fellow. He drew his katana from the scabbard on his back as the samurai fellow drew a long bokken, one of a dark reddish brown color, from the cloth carrying case he wore over his back. The Hero Killer was a bit intrigued in the samurai fellow's choice of weapon, and his eyes widened a bit as the samurai fellow became fully engulfed in a shroud of golden flames, flames that also engulfed the bokken but strangely enough not burning it to ashes in the slightest.

Stain, holding his katana back in preparation to deal a critical slashing motion, ran towards the samurai fellow as said fellow ran towards him, his bokken held in a manner similar to the katana. The two swordsmen ran past each other, slashing at one another as they passed. Both stood still on the shores of that beach at sunset, with only the sounds of the ocean's waters being what all could be heard in those moments.

A flash of blood and golden fire burst from the Hero Killer, fading before he fell to his knees on the sand, before falling over with his head turned to look out over the ocean one last time, to get one more look at the sunset. This would be Stain's funeral, dying on the beach at sunset, with only his final opponent in attendance. Stain felt that he had done all of his work, so he felt okay that this would be his end.

Twice did have good tastes.

* * *

It was the very beginning of nighttime when Izuku rushed through the doors of the local hospital, getting stopped by Bakugo who saw him due to having been waiting in the waiting room. "Calm the fuck down, Deku," the ashy-haired boy remarked, "The old hag ain't dead." There was a hint of worry in his tone, one that suggested he knew what was going on. But Izuku was too panicked about Mitsuki being in the hospital to have picked up on the hint.

"Kacchan, your mother was brought here for a very serious fever," Izuku said, "What if it's a sign of something much worse? What if it's some rare disease, and the fever is a symptom of it? What if her quirk is somehow making her fever even worse, because there have been reports on where a person's quirk can aggravate a sickness that they come down with, and sometimes it can get so bad that doctors have to go under the knife on a treatment that otherwise would have to involve any surgery and-"

The green-haired cinnamon roll was cut off when Bakugo slapped him across the face. After Izuku recovered, he turned to regard the explosive teen. It was then that Izuku finally saw that he had a hint of resigned worry in his expression. Bakugo sighed before he simply told Izuku to follow him. After the two boys were both cleared by the receptionist, they both proceeded to go through the hospital, Bakugo directing Izuku the whole time.

Eventually, the two U.A. students reached a hospital room. Bakugo knocked on the door, and a few seconds later it was answered by Inko, surprising Izuku. There were clear signs that the formerly plump but not quite yet slender woman had been crying; as a matter of fact, there were still tears running down the sides of her face. But Inko was wearing as brave of an expression as she could at the moment. With a silent nod, Inko let them in, closing the door behind them.

When they entered, Izuku and Bakugo saw Masaru sitting in a chair in the far left corner, along the wall opposite of where the hospital bed in the room had the top end up against. Laying in said hospital bed was Mitsuki, still very much alive to Izuku's relief. But that was the only good news about the whole situation; Mitsuki was wearing a hospital gown, was laying under the one cover on the hospital bed.

A few things were hooked up to the ashy-haired woman, the typical stuff you'd expect to see someone in the hospital being hooked up to. Izuku, and to a lesser extent Bakugo (he'd seen his mother like this already so it didn't totally shock him but still), were surprised to see Mitsuki, normally a brash, proud, energetic woman, looking so lost, so afraid. She looked up, her eyes quivering with tears, and over to Izuku before she said something to him that he seriously doubted that he would never forget.

"I've just been diagnosed with Breast Cancer."

END, CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

Author's notes;

All of the villainous characters that have troubled the good people of Japan are now either dead, or arrested and set to go to prison. As such, society is at as much peace at it could hope for until the next big threat pops up, but that won't happen until either the sequel or the Mineta spin-off story (I am going to be doing those), so for the rest of 'A couple that will go down in legend' the characters can finally live their lives in relative peace.

But it won't be easy for some, much less happy, because there are still a few scars that have to heal. There is also some medical needs that some have, Mitsuki most of all because of her diagnosis that was revealed right at the end of this chapter (to those of you who are surprised by the reveal of Mitsuki having Breast Cancer, the hints have popped up a few times on and off over the course of this arc). This is the point of the story where we will see the relationship between Izuku and Mitsuki truly put to the test, as a high schooler will be there for his older girlfriend as she goes through the ravages of cancer.

This is also the final chapter of the 'Climax arc'; the next chapter is going to be the first chapter of the next arc, which I am calling the 'Mitsuki arc'. Anyway, I'll be seeing you all later.


	66. Chapter 66

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter sixty-six: Countdown started

Izuku Midoriya, along with his childhood friend Katsuki Bakugo, stood behind where their respective mothers, Inko and Mitsuki, sat in chairs in front of a desk in a doctor's office over at the local hospital. Standing behind the women with the two boys was Masaru, the father of Bakugo, ex-husband of Mitsuki and boyfriend of Inko (Inko's husband was killed in action), who stood with the boys as the doctor sitting at the desk went over a few important details.

The doctor was a woman somewhat older than Inko or Mitsuki; she had fair skin, jet-black hair in a short hime style cut, a pair of large round lensed glasses, and the typical outfit one would expect a doctor to wear. Additionally, she was a bit well-fed, but not too much to warrant alarm right away. The doctor woman looked over a few things that were listed on her clipboard, then looked up from the clipboard to Mitsuki, before looking back to the clipboard and letting out a resigned sigh.

The doctor lowered the clipboard, laying it down on her desk. "…It's just as we feared, Mitsuki," the doctor said as she addressed the ashy-haired woman. Mitsuki wore a look of worried fear on her face as the doctor explained what exactly was going on. "Going over all of the results concerning the tests we took after we confirmed that you have Breast Cancer, I'm afraid that even the best method of treatment that we can attempt wouldn't be as effective as it normally would have been."

Everyone in the office went wide-eyed with shock; it was bad enough that Mitsuki was recently confirmed to have developed Breast Cancer. For a lot of the time, cancer tended to be a death sentence. But now, Mitsuki and the others were all being told that the best method of treatment was not quite going to cut it. The doctor woman sighed in a knowing, understanding tone as she nodded a few times. "I'm afraid that the effectiveness of most treatment options would actually be reduced due to Glycerin."

"You mean my quirk?" Mitsuki asked, her eyes widening a bit, drawing an affirmative nod out of the doctor. Mitsuki looked down to her lap, a resigned look on her face. "…So my quirk ended up making me develop cancer."

"Your quirk isn't responsible for that, Mitsuki," the doctor began to clarify, "It had nothing to do with your cancer developing. What it is doing in making possible treatment options not stick as well as they normally otherwise could have." She leaned back in her chair, a sorry, sympathetic look on her face. "You'd be surprised by how often a person's quirk can interfere with treatment in dire cases, such as chemotherapy."

More than a few of the people in the office with the doctor swallowed a lump in their respective throats. Speaking up with a hint of trepidation in her tone, Mitsuki asked, "Is…is there anything that could be done to resolve what's wrong with me? Any way to save my life?"

The doctor woman, her face showing somber resignation, gently shook her head. "…There's nothing that can be done at this point. Your quirk's interference in the process, as well as how advanced of a stage your cancer is at right now, is nothing that can honestly be overcome. I'm very sorry, Mitsuki." The doctor woman gently shook her head as she let out a resigned sigh before she focused on the ashy-haired woman, telling her news that shook not just her, but all of the other persons in the room to their very cores.

"You're going to be dying soon."

…

The two families that were friends with one another were allowed some time to be alone. Once that happened, once they were all alone, the first thing that happened was both Mitsuki and Inko breaking down and crying. After the women started crying, Izuku followed along after them, crying as well. Only Bakugo and his dad were able to stay strong; someone had to, after all, and they were the only ones able to do it.

"So…that's it, then," Mitsuki sniffled once she had been able to calm down enough, "I'm going to bite it soon. End of story, good-bye, the end." Her tone sounded resigned, accepting of her fate but only because she knew that there was going to be no way around it. The ashy-haired woman looked up and over to the boys, focusing on Izuku in particular. "So…what do you want to do now, bae?" Mitsuki asked.

"Hmm?" Izuku remarked, a hint of curious confusion in his sad, troubled expression.

Mitsuki let out a resigned sigh, one reflecting the tone of what her ultimate fate was going to be. "I mean that in regards to our relationship," Mitsuki said to her younger boyfriend, "I mean, I'm going to be eighty-sixing soon, so do you want to end things between us before that happens or-"

The green-eyed boy stood up suddenly, rather forcefully as well. There was a firm look of serious determination on his face. "Mitsuki, no," Izuku said, "I do not want to stop being with you, especially right now out of all times." Everyone else in the room looked at Izuku with looks of surprise on their faces. Mitsuki in particular was the most surprised out of all of the others in that room at the hospital.

"You're…you're willing to continue dating me?" Mitsuki asked, her somewhat subdued tone making it clear that she was astonished, "Willing to stay with me even if it means I'm going to die on you?" The green-haired cinnamon roll nodded once in the affirmative before he gave the reason for his decision.

"I don't want you dying alone."

Right away, Mitsuki teared up as she resumed crying again, only this time she was touched by how far her younger boyfriend was willing to go for her, even though it would undoubtedly cause him a lot of emotional pain. Similarly, Inko was touched by how much care her son had for others, even if it (more than) occasionally would come as some expense to him. But then again, that's Izuku Midoriya for you, the boy who for all his life only ever wanted to be a hero.

He was being pretty heroic right now if one were to give the notion some thought.

* * *

Given how massive a drop it was, it was only natural that word of Mitsuki's condition would reach the ears of others at U.A., given that both Mitsuki's son and Mitsuki's boyfriend attended the top hero academy in Japan. Many in class 1-A, the homeroom that both Izuku and Bakugo belonged to, expressed condolences over how the ashy-haired woman was soon going to die, leaving a massive hole in both of their lives.

"The old hag ain't dead yet," Bakugo remarked, "And knowing her, she'll be going down swinging anyway. Like hell she's one to just roll over and let the reaper take her without a fight." The others in 1-A were amazed that Bakugo was so calm about everything, although those who personally knew Mitsuki agreed with Bakugo on how his mother, despite what all she's going through right now, would still do her damnest to make acquiring her soul a pyrrhic victory for even death itself.

That's just how Mitsuki rolled, and she's probably where Bakugo gets that part of his attitude from himself.

Some of the 1-A students, particularly those who are friends with Izuku such as Todoroki and Tenya, were about to offer their condolences to the green-eyed boy, but they were cut off when Aizawa walked into the room, getting the attention of all twenty-four of his students. It was at a count of twenty-four due to how, a while ago, one of their own ended up getting expelled out of U.A. due to being charged with something truly reprehensible.

To the piqued interest of the 1-A students, Aizawa was accompanied by a girl approximately the same age as the average for ages among the class 1-A and class 1-B students. The girl, already in a copy of the U.A. girl's uniform, was fair-skinned and about as tall as Mina. The new girl had black hair, long enough to reach her waist, but the hair turned blonde at the last couple of inches. Her eyes, which helped to give her a soft expression despite how she was scowling a bit in a way that suggested she'd be itching for a brawl, were a pale pink color. The new girl also had a scar on the upper left area of her forehead, the scar resembling somewhat like a flame.

Gesturing to the new girl, Aizawa said to his students, "Alright brats, listen up. This here is Nezuko Agatsuma. As of today, she'll be joining this class. Try not to make things too difficult for her as she adjusts to being transferred to here from class 1-K, alright?"

"She was in class 1-K?" Tenya asked as he raised a hand, "That's one of the classes in U.A.'s department of management, if I recall correctly."

Giving off an annoyed sounding scoff, Nezuko crossed her arms over her chest as she regarded her new class's class rep. "The hell is it to you where I came from, four-eyes? You wanna fight about it after school?" The new girl gave a darkly amused, serious look as she regarded all of her new classmates, pounding her right fist into her left hand. "I'll take on any and all of you who want to have a go," Nezuko declared, "But don't complain if I kick your ass!"

The twenty-four students that were already in class 1-A were a bit surprised with how…how aggressive their new classmate was. Some of the girls were wondering just exactly how the new girl would have reacted if, had Mineta not have gotten expelled from U.A., he tried to act his usual perverted self towards Nezuko. Given the fact that the new girl had the aggressive, fight-hungry personality of Bakugo, some of the other girls were figuring that it would have been quite a show to observe.

Nezuko felt a pat on her shoulder, making her turn to look at Aizawa. "…I know that you're eager to prove that you're just as capable of being in the hero course as your new classmates that are already here, especially to those who have been in 1-A since the very beginning of the school year. But there is no need to act like Bakugo if he were a girl."

"Oi, sensei!" Bakugo cried out in an annoyed tone, although some of the other students in class had to suppress some chuckling.

After most everyone had settled down, Izuku raised a hand. "Umm, excuse me sensei, but I have a question for Nezuko," the green-eyed boy began.

Seeing that someone had stood up to ask her a question, Nezuko turned to regard Izuku. "What is it, you want to be the first person I fight?" Nezuko asked.

"No, I go to see Recovery Girl enough as it is," Izuku replied, "What I wanted to ask about is your quirk. What is it?"

Nezuko, with a bit of a surprised look on her face, calmed down a little bit. "…Oh, it's a transformation quirk called Demonic Visage," Nezuko said as she began to explain her quirk, "It lets me transform into one of two forms; one that's basically a small, child-sized chibi-version of myself, and the other makes me grow two feet in height while becoming far more muscular while making my canines longer and more pointed and making my ears somewhat pointed as well, overall giving me a somewhat demonic look."

Izuku nodded a few times in understanding as he got all of what Nezuko's quirk was about. "I can see how your second form would be what you'd use primarily in combat, and there are a good number of uses that I can think of for your first form." Looking to his newest classmate, Izuku remarked, "I bet that you'd make for one awesome hero, Nezuko."

"Is that a challenge, Green Bean?!" Nezuko said, stomping forward with her right foot as she shook a fist threateningly at Izuku. As Izuku paled a bit under the new girl's challenge, some of the other class 1-A students chuckled a bit as they saw their newest classmate truly shine as the closest thing that they had to a girl version of Bakugo.

* * *

Over in the school library located at U.A., Izuku was hanging out with his friends Todoroki, Tenya, Shinso, Uraraka and Tsuyu. There was a clear look of resignation on his troubled face as he sat at that table with his friends, looking like he might start crying at any moment. "I…I still can't believe that Mitsuki's cancer is going to kill her," Izuku remarked, his tone barely above a whisper, "She's going to die and nothing can really be done about it."

"It is indeed a very troubling thing to consider, Izuku," Tenya remarked, his tone expressing sympathy towards his green-haired friend, "It's never easy knowing that essentially a timer had been set on how much time someone close to you has left."

"We've all been through rather rough patches in our respective lives if you thing about it kero." Everyone at the table turned to regard Tsuyu as she proceeded to explain. "I mean, think about it. Tenya's older brother was attacked and left in critical condition at one point, Todoroki's gone through all manner of abuse in his life, Shinso's arguably had it worse in that regard prior to being saved from that mess by Aizawa-sensei, Uraraka's mom was murdered while home alone, and my little brother was…" Tsuyu stopped mis-sentence, took a breath to steady herself. "…He was killed, and would still be dead if it wasn't for Sengoku."

Uraraka nodded in understanding, showing that she was following along with the point that the frog-like girl was trying to make. The gravity girl turned to face Izuku, giving him a sympathetic look. "I think that what Tsuyu is trying to say here is that all of us have suffered a lot in some degree," Uraraka remarked, "That all of us can sympathize with you to some degree. There's no need for you to be alone on this one, Izuku."

Izuku saw it as all of his friends regarded him with sympathetic looks, all of them showing that they understood that he was hurting, that they could all relate to it to some degree. "…Thanks, you guys," the green-eyed boy said as he wiped some tears away from his eyes, "I mean, I've been so focused on being there for Mitsuki, that I kind of forgot about the fact that I could use some support as well." Nodding once, Izuku said to all of his friends, "Thanks for-"

"Oi, Green Bean."

Izuku was interrupted, stopping short mid-sentence, as he and everyone else turned around to see that Nezuko, the new girl in their class, was standing near their table, her arms crossed over her chest as she regarded him with a serious, challenging look. "I heard about what all you've done since you first started art U.A.," the demonic-esque girl remarked, "From what I gathered from all of that, I figure you ought to be one hell of a guy to fight." She jerked a thumb over her right shoulder, as if she were pointing out some direction.

"Come with me to Gym Gamma, and make sure you're wearing your hero outfit," Nezuko said, her tone leaving no room for Izuku to argue, "I want to have a go at you."

"Umm, Agatsuma," Tenya began, "Now isn't exactly a good time to try and-"

Tenya stopped short, everyone else at the table doing so as well, as they all watched Izuku stand up to be at eye level with Nezuko. "…Actually, I wouldn't mind accepting the challenge," Izuku remarked, "I'm kind of want to see your quirk in action anyway, so it works out for the best." All of the green-eyed boy's friends were surprised that Izuku had actually accepted the challenge from their class's newest student. As for said new student herself, she gave off an amused smirk that wouldn't be out of place on the face of someone like Bakugo.

"Well hot damn, and here I was afraid you were as much of a weak nerd as that angry Pomeranian in our class was claiming you were," Nezuko said. She then turned around and proceeded to walk away. "I'll give you an hour to be ready and at Gym Gamma. I'll be waiting in my hero outfit, so we can go as soon as you show up." Before any of Izuku's friends could stop her, Nezuko had left the library.

After the demonic-esque girl had left, all of Izuku's friends had turned to face him. "Izuku, why would you actually accept Nezuko's challenge like that?" Shinso asked, "I mean, I know that you like seeing new quirks in action and all, but there's no need to get an up-front demonstration from the new girl about how her quirk works."

Izuku shrugged, wearing an expression of indifference. "Sometimes, a practical approach is needed to learn." Izuku's friends could all tell that the green-haired cinnamon roll had a different reason that he wasn't divulging, but all of them were too afraid to ask for what it was, out of worry that they might overstep some manner of bounds with Izuku. Regardless, they all went along with Izuku as he left the library, with the boys going into a locker room with him to watch him change into his hero outfit before he went over to Gym Gamma to have his match against the new girl in class.

* * *

When Izuku and his friends got to Gym Gamma, they saw that Nezuko was, true to her word, already waiting there in her hero outfit. The new girl's choice of hero outfit had a simple white cloth wrapping around her breasts, keeping anything indecent from being seen, and a pair of dark-colored baggy hakama pants that was fastened up by a belt that looked to be made of a brownish, fluffy animal fur hide belt. For her footwear, Nezuko wore a pair of knee socks made from a furry hide, but her heels and toes were exposed, and a pair of sandal bases covering the bottoms of her feet.

What really denoted Nezuko's costume was a taxidermized, hollowed-out wolf's head; given the way that it looked, Izuku wondered if Nezuko could see out of it at all. Suddenly, as if to answer the wondering question of Izuku and his friends, the wolf's head turned to look right at the lot of them. "The eyes of my wolf's head are specially designed to not only look real, but allow me to see out of it just fine." Nezuko gestured to Izuku to take a place to stand directly in front of her. "I'm ready to go when you are, and good on you for remembering to come in your hero outfit."

Izuku nodded in the affirmative, then took a place in Gym Gamma to stand directly in front of Nezuko, standing about fifteen feet away or so from where he stood himself. "YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHH!" Nezuko exclaimed at the top of her lungs as she turned her head upwards to look towards the ceiling in Gym Gamma. Suddenly, Izuku's friends, who were going to watch things from the side of the gym, noticed the new girl slowly become a lot more muscular as she noticeably grew in height.

Understanding that Nezuko was going into her fighting mode, Izuku decided to do the same, using Full Cowling to go right into twenty percent of One for All, red lines appearing all over his body as his form gave off sparks of green electricity. Nezuko, once she had finished the process of transforming, ran right at her green-haired opponent in a straight line, using a pose that was commonly referred to as 'ninja running'.

Izuku jumped out of the way and took aim at Nezuko like he was going to flick something at her. "Delaware Smash Air Force!" Izuku declared as he fired a pressurized air cannon with his Air Force Gloves. Then, to the surprise of Izuku and his friends who were watching, Nezuko dodged the attack by shrinking down to what must have been her aforementioned 'chibi-form', before she proceeded to run around the battlefield of Gym Gamma that, oddly enough, looked hilarious in an adorable sense.

Izuku then proceeded to chase after her, and missed hitting her with a Manchester Smash. Right when Izuku's foot slammed into the floor of Gym Gamma, Nezuko, who was right next to him, grew right back into her battle form and tried to throw a punch at Izuku. However, he caught the punch and, using momentum, threw himself up above Nezuko and took aim to fire off another Delaware Smash Air Force, successfully hitting Nezuko this time.

Nezuko spun around after Izuku's attack hit her in the back; as she spun, her left hand fingernails, which were a bit longer and sharp-looking due to the transformation, clawed at the green-eyed boy, tearing the stomach area of Izuku's outfit. Luckily, Izuku was just far enough away to avoid being scratched by the somewhat demonic-looking nails of the demon wolf girl who was on the hunt right now.

"She's good." The girls, Tenya and Shinso all turned to regard Todoroki as the lot of them heard him speak up. "She's been in one of the management courses up until she got transferred to our hero course class. And yet Nezuko's proving that she can keep up with not only someone who's been in our class since the first day, but a someone who just so happens to be one of the best that 1-A has to offer." The two-toned boy crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, at least I think that Izuku is one of our best."

"A wild, battle-hungry girl like Nezuko would have been pretty useful in the raid to capture Ryoga," Shinso remarked, his tone showing he agreed with the son of Endeavor.

The battle between Izuku and Nezuko raged on for a bit longer, but soon came to an end when Izuku, after landing a Manchester Smash and another Delaware Smash Air Force, had pushed Nezuko close to the edge of the battleground. Izuku was preparing to move in to deal another blow, but stopped short when Nezuko raised both of her hands in a gesture of surrender. After seeing that Izuku was stopping, Nezuko removed her wolf's head as she shrunk down from her battle form to her regular one.

"Hoo boy, nothing like working up a good sweat to get your mind off of stuff for a bit, huh?" the new girl of 1-A asked as she gave Izuku a self-amused look. Seeing the look of confusion on the green-eyed boy's face, Nezuko rolled her eyes as she gave off a resigned sigh. "…Look, that one girl in our class, the one with the pink skin and hair, got me up to speed on what's going on in your life. When she told me that your girlfriend's been diagnosed with cancer, it…it kind of hit me right where it would hurt the most."

Izuku and his friends saw Nezuko tap the area of her chest over where her heart would be with her right fist (her left hand was holding her wolf's head). Nezuko then offered a sympathetic look that seemed as if the demonic girl was remembering something tragic that happened to her in the past. "…My granduncle Inosuke bit it due to Colon Cancer." Nezuko then lifted up her wolf's head and held it with both hands, looking right into the special eyes that allowed her to see while she wore the object. "This was his wolf's head mask. It's one of the few things that I have to remember my late granduncle by."

Nezuko lowered her wolf's head, looked up and over to Izuku. "You're suffering. Don't try to deny it, you are. No one can see a loved one of theirs go through the ravages of cancer and not suffer emotionally because of it. But others have suffered things in their lives as well, and some people even have endured what you're going through right now. There're people who are willing to be there for you, Green Bean." Nezuko then put her wolf's head back on. "…Even if it's by distracting you from your troubles for a bit. Good fight, by the way."

Izuku, letting out a mildly tired breath given the match he just had with Nezuko, replied by offering an appreciative smile. "…Thanks, Nezuko. For both the compliment and for trying to help me, even if it was in your own way."

The new girl of 1-A gave an amused chuckle. "I can tell you're one of the best that our class has to offer, so I'm just trying to make sure you stay that way by trying to make you feel better while you're in a rough spot." Suddenly, Nezuko pointed a challenging finger at Izuku as she declared, "I'm serious, if I find out you're starting to wimp up, I'll track you down and kick your ass right back into ass-kicking form! You hear me, Green Bean?"

Izuku, unable to help himself because of who Nezuko sort of reminded him of, started to laugh a bit. His friends who were watching the match also laughed a bit. Nezuko had no idea why all of her new classmates were laughing, and it made her fume with anger a bit.

* * *

That evening over at the Bakugo residence, Mitsuki was typing something up on a computer. After she finished her progress with her word document, she saved the progress, closed out everything, then got up from the computer desk as she walked over to the sofa in the living room, where Izuku was sitting waiting. He had some mugs of warm tea waiting for the both of them after the ashy-haired woman finished what she was typing up.

Mitsuki, despite herself, despite knowing that she was going to die soon, had a relaxed, mildly amused smile on her face as she turned to face Izuku. "…You seem to be in higher spirits than you were when I last saw you while we were all at the hospital, sweetie," Mitsuki remarked, putting an arm over her younger boyfriend's shoulders as he turned to face her. She leaned close to him, planted a quick peck on his right cheek. "Anything good happen?"

"Me and Kacchan's class got a new student today," Izuku proceeded to explain, "We found out that it's because our class is supposed to be full to the current limit for hero course classes over at U.A., and since we were at twenty-four out of twenty-five, Principal Nezu wanted to fill that last spot up. He moved a class 1-K girl named Nezuko into 1-A."

The ashy-haired woman gave Izuku a wry, self-amused look. "Oh? Already scoping out who to grab next after I kick it, babe?" Mitsuki asked in a clearly teasing tone.

"Oh no, I am not going to do anything like that," Izuku said, "I will not focus on any woman other than you."

Mitsuki chuckled a bit as she patted Izuku's shoulder with the hand she had around him. "Relax, babe, I'm just joshing you." Mitsuki cast her gaze up towards the ceiling in the living room. "This is me being serious now, though. You are going to eventually move on after I bite it and get yourself another girl to have in your life, aren't you Izuku?"

"As I said before, Mitsuki," Izuku said, "I'm going to focus on you, and only you, while you're still alive. And when you do eventually pass, I will take time to mourn you." Izuku had a bit of a somber look on his face as he looked down to his lap. He closed his eyes, let out a sigh. "…But yes. After all of that, I will move on."

"Good." Izuku opened his eyes back up, turned to face Mitsuki as he heard her speak. When he did, the green-haired cinnamon roll saw that Mitsuki was looking right at him, a somber look of acceptance and understanding on her face. "…Izuku, you're doing more than anyone could have ever asked of you by being willing to stay in a relationship with me, even though I've got cancer and it set a doom count for me. When you declined my offer to willingly stop dating me because you didn't want me to die single, I couldn't help but cry. It is bar none the single biggest act of kindness that anyone has ever done for me."

Mitsuki then used her arm that she had around Izuku's shoulders to pull him closer to her, then she wrapped her other arm around him, drawing him into a gentle hug that saw his face buried into her right shoulder. "It's the sweetest thing you've ever done for me, willingly staying with me until I die because you don't want me to be alone. But just as you don't want me to be alone, I don't want you to be alone after I'm gone." Mitsuki let a sigh off into her younger boyfriend's hair. "…I'm glad to hear that you don't plan to mourn me forever."

Izuku nodded once in acknowledgement, his somewhat tired-looking, somber expression showing that he might tear up a bit. Mitsuki, as she patted Izuku on the back, said as she had him in her arms, "I bet that Nezuko girl you mentioned wouldn't mind a piece of you after I'm no longer around to chase her off."

"Mitsuki, me and Kacchan's newest classmate is far from being the kind of girl I would ever have any romantic interest in," Izuku remarked dryly, "She's a good classmate, don't get me wrong, not to mention that she is conventionally appealing, and I really appreciated her attempt to try to distract my mind from how I feel, but Nezuko is…" Izuku trailed off a bit, trying to figure out how to put what he wanted to say. "...She is just not what I'd say would be my kind of girl."

"Then maybe you'll keep an eye out for a chubby girl with a big, plump butt?" Mitsuki asked in a teasing tone as she let Izuku go from the hug so she could look him in the face, "Because I was there the last time that your dad came back from his overseas working back when he was still alive, and I could tell he was digging how the weight that Inko had gained made her look, and I even saw him steal more than a few glances at Inko's butt, and I was figuring that you may have gotten some tastes in women from your old man which would lead me to think that-"

"Mitsuki!" Izuku exclaimed in an embarrassed tone, blushing profusely under all of the playful, joking teasing his older girlfriend was giving him. Seeing the look on Izuku's face, Mitsuki was not able to help it as she burst out laughing.

END, CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

Author's notes;

The ravages of cancer are nothing to joke about, but that doesn't mean one has to let it bog them down all the time. Breaks are needed to recharge one's spirits; one's mental health is just as big of a deal to keep in mind, you know. And there are others who will be there for those that are suffering, even if all they can do is help recharge the suffering person's spirits a bit. That was the point of this chapter, other people showing that they would be there to help Izuku and Mitsuki with what all they have on their plates, even as they help one another in any way they can.

The new girl in class 1-A, Nezuko Agatsuma, was inspired mainly by the main characters from _Demon Slayer_, a manga/anime that I've grown rather fond of (the five guys in 1-B that were all placed into there, aside from Akuma, were all inspired by a number of other animes that I like, so this should come as no surprise). Her role in the story, aside from adding more power to 1-A and filling the gap that was left when Mineta was rightfully kicked out (about damn time, too) is to be a shoulder for Izuku to lean on, offering the kind of sympathy that only someone who had been in Izuku's place before can offer. After the sympathy role is fulfilled, she'll still be a fun character to work with.

The next chapter will show the trials another of class 1-A is going through, so that Izuku and Mitsuki can have a break. I won't say what exactly will happen, but I will say that Yaoyorozu is going to be seeking some advice as well as some help; a certain kind of advice and help that only Uraraka can provide her with.


	67. Chapter 67

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter sixty-seven: How does one do poor?

To say that the downfall of Ryoga Yaoyorozu had minimal damage would be a complete and total lie.

The fallout of what all he had been up to being released to the general public, his large elaborate home being besieged by heroes in a raid to capture him, his subsequent arrest and a vast majority of his assets being seized; all of that and more culminated in a large, gigantic mess that not only impacted Japanese media since things related to Ryoga's downfall are still being talked about on the news and such, but impacted the Japanese economy since Ryoga simply controlled that much assets in the land of the rising sun.

The impact to the Japanese economy that resulted from the downfall of the disgraced mogul was so massive that it covered up all other side bits, including how his wife Maka, disgusted with what all Ryoga had done and ashamed to have ever been with him at all in light of his actions being revealed, had filed for divorce, taking her and Ryoga's daughter Momo along with her. She won't even get all that much out of the divorce settlement, what with just how much of her soon-to-be ex-husband's assets had been seized by the government.

There was just so much stuff that the government needed the police and the pro heroes to help carry all of what was seized in.

But that's beside the point. Maka and her daughter both have their own separate accounts, which were mercifully left alone by those who were in the process of seizing what all Ryoga had, that they can draw upon as they get settled into their new life while Maka looks for work. But those accounts, as notably respectable as they may be, won't last them both forever (especially given how shaky the economy is right now), hence why Maka was keen on whipping out all of her old qualifications in teaching. Maka is actually trained and licensed to teach special needs children; she even got a word put in for her by Ryukyu when she applied for a position at the autistic children's academy.

Hoping for the best, Maka settled down on a chair in the apartment that she got, thankful that she now had some kind of steady place where she and her daughter can live. Speaking of said child, she was helping her mother with moving things into the apartment. Yaoyorozu took a quick look around the apartment that was now the new home that she and her mother had. It was a very far cry from the mansion they used to live in (that was off limits now too, not that Maka and her daughter would be able to afford the upkeep costs anyway), but it least it had a homey feel that made Yaoyorozu feel as if the new life she and her mother had would at least get off to a fairly nice start.

It was a rather cheap number that had a living room, a kitchen and dining area, a bathroom, and the two bedrooms; rather than a laundry room, they would have to use the on-sight laundromat. Yaoyorozu, until the moment she and her mother moved in, had never in her life even heard of laundromats. It was a thought that made Yaoyorozu realize just how vastly sheltered she had been all of her life.

This new life was going to be…interesting, indeed.

Due to the fact that U.A. was having a teachers holiday, students had time off, which was perfect as it allowed Yaoyorozu to help her mom with the move to the apartment building. In a very sweet move on his part, Yosetsu Awase, Yaoyorozu's boyfriend, had offered to help her and her mom figure out things that, due to the previously vastly wealthy life that they had both lived, left the both of them truly dumbfounded.

"So this is Chinese take-out," Yaoyorozu remarked as she, Maka and Yosetsu ate Chinese take-out together at the basic dining table in the apartment. She ate a bit of orange chicken, found the flavor to be actually rather enjoyable. "I've heard of it, but I never had any."

"Yeah, the place that I gave your mom the number to is a place that my classmate Hiryu swears by," Yosetsu remarked, "And Juzo says that they have the best eggrolls out of any Chinese place that he ever ate anything from."

Maka, as she held an eggroll up by pinching it with her right index finger and thumb, looked at it as if she were examining some marvel that she had never seen before. "So this is an eggroll."

Yaoyorozu sat her food down, gave a resigned sigh. "…I still can't believe that what all had taken place had happened, what all that man I refuse to acknowledge now had done. He even had Tsuyu's little brother killed simply because he made mom upset one time."

Maka let out a troubled sigh. "…No, Momo, your father had that sweet boy killed simply because I refused to have sex with him that day due to being irritated when the child was having a loud fit when your father and I came out of the restaurant located on that street." Maka then let out a resigned sigh. "I still can't believe I had inspired your father's decision making process in such a manner. And when I was told that boy was actually having a meltdown because a rush of heroes made a lot of noise that made him panic, I became even more horrified."

It was true, Yaoyorozu and her mother being filled in on everything that had been gotten from Ryoga while he was incarcerated; Yaoyorozu was even shocked to find out that her father had the villain Re-Destro, who was the main cause behind the villain siege that ravaged the city a while ago, killed simply because Re-Destro had killed Yaoyorozu herself. If it weren't for the Sacred Heritage quirk users from the United States being in Japan at the time, then not only would Yaoyorozu (plus a few others who were killed in the villain siege) not be here, but the siege would have been far worse.

A Sacred Heritage quirk user is also the reason why Tsuyu's brother Samidare is alive.

Gently shaking her head, Maka said, "Well, forget about him. He dug his own grave as far as I'm concerned." Turning to face Yaoyorozu, Maka said, "Well, I suppose it will just be you and me now, Momo. As well as what friends the both of us have right now, as well as those who we'll meet going out from here. …Heh, I never thought that things would actually be like this for us, sweetie. But here we are." Maka looked up at the ceiling in the kitchen and dining area.

"…We're poor now."

"I wouldn't necessarily say that, mom," Yaoyorozu remarked, "I mean, we both still have the money in our respective personal accounts, and from what I can gleam you're a shoo-in to get hired at that school for special needs kids, so that will help."

Maka chuckled a bit. "Yes, yes, Momo. We'll be able to get by well enough for the immediate future. But once the savings we had going into our new lives bottoms out, it'll just be what we can get going out from there. Things will be…umm…what's the terminology I'm looking for…"

"…Things will be getting tight?" Yosetsu offered, sounding like he was guessing.

Pointing commandingly at her daughter's boyfriend, Maka said, "Yes, that! Thank you." Giving Yosetsu a bit of an embarrassed look that suggested she was about to ask something she felt may come off as rude in some way, Maka said, "Yosetsu, sorry if this comes off as a bit mean on my part, but I was hoping that you might be willing to help Momo and me by giving us advice on how we can-"

"-How you can live like the people in lower-class?" Yosetsu finished, eliciting an embarrassed laugh out of Maka and some apologetic looks from Yaoyorozu. Holding up a hand to cut off any arguments, Yosetsu wore a calm and mildly amused looking expression of understanding on his face. "…It's no biggie, Mrs. Y. I know that I'm at a far lower social class than what you and Yaoyorozu had lived prior to now. Hell, the only students in 1-A and 1-B that I know of who are above any level of middle class are Tenya and Todoroki."

Yaoyorozu let out a resigned sigh. "…So most of them can help me with what all my mom and I can do, now that we're living in the social class that we're in now."

"Yeah, a lot of us, myself included, can help you and your mom figure things out," Yosetsu agreed. A knowing smirk of amusement appeared on his face as he added, "But if you want the _best_ advice on how to live life as a much poorer person that how you used to be, then there is only one person out of everyone in 1-A and 1-B who can give you the best help and advice."

* * *

"You want Uraraka to help you do what now kero?"

The following morning at the girls-only dorm building on U.A. grounds, all of the girl in 1-A and 1-B, as well as Nejire, had gathered in the main area on the ground floor, sitting around as the rest of the girls watched Yaoyorozu speak to Tsuyu and Uraraka, who were both sitting next to each other. "As all of you know," Yaoyorozu began to explain, letting out a resigned sigh, "Due to what had happened, my mother and I are doing what we can to distance ourselves from that man who I refuse to acknowledge."

"You mean your dad." Yaoyorozu nodded curtly to Reiko's remark. The ghost girl of 1-B gave an understanding nod. "You aren't the only person to have hang-ups in regards to your male parent. Todoroki's often steamed at his father."

The formerly-wealthy girl let out a sigh. "…That's beside the point. The point that I am trying to get at here is that, as a result of all of the fallout, as well as the government seizing a lot of _his_ assets when all of his dirty laundry was aired, my mother and I are…umm…how can I put this in an acceptable manner of-"

Getting up from where she was sitting, Mina pointed dramatically at Yaoyorozu and exclaimed with clear amusement on her face, "You're poor now, aren't you?!" After Yaoyorozu gave a clearly annoyed and exasperated sigh before answering in the affirmative, Mina, as well as both Setsuna and Hatsume, proceeded to laugh out loud, clearly finding amusement in how the once fabulously wealthy ponytailed girl was now at the social class level where people tended to be scrounging for change.

Nejire, who admittedly also giggled a bit at Yaoyorozu's expense, was able to get the other girls to settle back down. "…My guess is that you're hoping that Uraraka, who had been in the spot that you and your mom now find yourselves in, could give you advice on how to live frugally."

"That…" Yaoyorozu said, stopping short to let out a troubled sigh. "…Yes, that is exactly what I was hoping for. My mom and I, we…we just don't know what to do."

"Uh, question," Yui said as she raised a hand, getting Yaoyorozu's attention, "What makes you think that Uraraka would be willing to help you? I mean, your daddy tried to have her killed twice, and also succeeded on the first try to have Uraraka's mom killed. Not to mention what all your old man's done otherwise to harass the construction company Uraraka's parents started up all because he was pissed that-"

Yui, as well as all other girls in the room, stopped short when Uraraka herself stood up, keeping her eyes on Yaoyorozu the whole time. "…I'll take you to do some shopping later today after classes are done for the day," Uraraka said as she addressed her formerly wealthy classmate, "There are a few things that I can show you that will help to stretch whatever budgets you and your mom will be working with in the foreseeable future."

"I can also offer a few tips myself, if you would like," Reiko remarked, getting Yaoyorozu to focus on her, "My folks are arguably at the same social class level that Uraraka and her family were in prior to her parents' company getting way more successful. As it stands right now, I'm probably the poorest student in the hero course."

"And yet she's dating the boy who is now the _richest_ student in the hero course," Mina remarked to herself in a dry tone under her breath.

No one paid attention to the pink-skinned girl's muttering, as they were all focused on Yaoyorozu, who looked like she might start tearing up out of gratitude for the help that she was being shown, most of all by someone who would understandable be bitter towards her due to what her disgraced father had done. Either way, things were going to be interesting after classes today, as Uraraka and to a lesser extent Reiko took Yaoyorozu on a shopping trip to show her the wonders of living life as a poor person.

* * *

Uraraka and Reiko had Yaoyorozu with them in one of the aisles of a supermarket. They were looking as two shelving units that had various kinds of merchandise, all of them labeled with yellow stickers that listed low prices. "This, Yaoyorozu," Uraraka said as she gestured to the shelf, "Is the discounted products shelf. The stuff you can find here is a lot cheaper than what other comparable items you can find in the store."

"Some of the packaging on a lot of the items here looks damaged," Yaoyorozu remarked, squinting a bit as she looked at what all was on the discount shelves.

Uraraka gave an indifferent shrug. "That's one of the reasons stuff in the store here can end up on these shelves. But don't let little things like that stop you. Hell, all of the soda I ever drank prior to getting into U.A. were from cans that my folks bought from these shelves."

"My mom tends to get creative with meals she makes from what food items are on the discount item shelves here," Reiko remarked, "Sure, occasionally at least a few of the food items are just a little bit past the expiration date-"

"Say what now?" Yaoyorozu said suddenly, a mildly confused and somewhat alarmed look on her face.

Reiko held up a hand to cut off any further argument from the formerly rich girl. "-But there's no need to fear what kinds of bounties the discount section has to offer. The stuff you can find here changes at least weekly, so it never hurts to check one every couple of days." Leaning forward, the ghost girl of class 1-B grabbed a can of generic cola. "…See?" Reiko pointed to the sticker on the can of cola. "This is only twenty-five yen. Cans of name brand cola are often at least one-hundred yen. If you don't mind settling for generic, you can save at least seventy-five percent of the money from what you allocate to soda, giving you just that little bit more for other things."

Uraraka nodded in agreement with Reiko's assessment before turning to regard Yaoyorozu. "What's the food situation like for your mom and you at the apartment where you two live?"

The formerly wealthy girl had a mildly resigned look on her face, her gaze to the side as she poked her index fingers together. "…There's only the leftovers from the Chinese take-out that we ordered yesterday after we got into the apartment."

"Reiko, go get a shopping cart and bring it here," Uraraka instructed, "We'll wait for you here." The ghost girl of 1-B nodded obediently and went off to get the cart as Uraraka turned to face Yaoyorozu. "We're going to be helping you get some stuff into the apartment, starting with getting the food situation squared away," Uraraka began, "We'll get what good stuff is here on the discount shelf, then we'll cover essentials in grocery shopping. What's your funds that you have right now?"

Sighing once more, Yaoyorozu said, "Only what I have in my account. At least my personal account wasn't touched by the government people as they seized all of the assets that belonged to _that man_." Uraraka nodded in understanding right at Reiko returned with the cart. The two girls, both experienced in living in lower class, were just getting started on giving their formerly wealthy friend a crash-course in the subject. A good thing that Yaoyorozu is not only smart but also a fast learner.

* * *

"So this is what a thrift store is."

Both Uraraka and Reiko were a bit amused by the wondering awe that Yaoyorozu was expressing as they took her to a thrift store to show her where to get new clothing now that the kind of clothing stores Yaoyorozu liked to go to were way too far out of her budget.

Uraraka gestured to the rack of shirts in front of her and the other girls. "You will be amazed to learn what all you can get clothing wise from a store like this. Remember that one dress that you showed all of the girls in our class, the dress you said you were planning to wear to the wedding that Aizawa-sensei and Ms. Joke are going to have?" Gesturing to an entire rack, Uraraka said, "You can get everything on that rack for that much, and have some money to spare."

Yaoyorozu was a bit disheartened to be reminded of that dress she was planning to wear to the wedding, as she had to sell it due to the money crunch she and her mother now faced. But that bit of disheartening did not last, as Yaoyorozu became very much surprised with just how much clothing she could get with the budget that she normally would have allocated to just one dress. It really put a lot into perspective for Yaoyorozu.

"Let's check and see what all there is available," Uraraka said, "I don't want you thinking that it would be okay to go crazy with buying a bunch of clothing just because you can afford that much with the budget allocated to that one dress. We can probably pick out several good shirts for you, then move on to pants."

"We can also check out the other sections of the thrift store, as clothing is not all that is donated here to be sold at discounted prices," Reiko remarked, "There's furniture, books, DVDs, an aisle of toys, some knickknacks, this one time that I came here while bringing Todoroki along for the trip he found an archery bow…"

* * *

After a good bit of both food shopping and clothing shopping, Yaoyorozu led Uraraka and Reiko to the apartment building where she and her mother lived now. When the trio of girls arrived, Uraraka looked up at the building with her eyes widening in surprise. "Wait a minute, this is the apartment building you and your mom live at now?" Turning to face her formerly wealthy classmate, Uraraka said, "Yaoyorozu, this is where-"

"Oh, aren't you three of Izuku's schoolmates?" a familiar female voice called out, cutting Uraraka off and making her, Reiko and Yaoyorozu turn to see Inko walking up to them, after she had called out to them.

Gesturing to Inko, Uraraka said after turning back to face Yaoyorozu, "Izuku and his mom live in this apartment building, Yaoyorozu. You and your mom have Izuku and his mom as neighbors now." The formerly wealthy girl's eyes widened a bit out of surprise as she learned that she now lived in the same apartment building as one of her classmates.

Nodding a few times in the affirmative, Inko said, "Oh yes, I already know about that business, as I met Maka earlier today after I got back here from my routine trip to the gym. It was the gym that Masaru goes to, so he was with me when we ran into Maka." Clapping her hands together, Inko said, "Oh, Yaoyorozu! There's this perfectly good, in-shape sofa that was left next to the dumpster here at the apartment building, and I think that it would be a good choice if you and your mom were to take it."

"Take a sofa that was thrown out?" Yaoyorozu remarked, looking and sounding mildly revolted.

Shrugging indifferently, Reiko said, "Hey, prior to my family's home being spruced up because Todoroki got his dad to shell out big time, the only piece of furniture we owned that we did not get by grabbing it after it was left by a dumpster was my mattress. Everything else was either picked up after we found it left by a dumpster, or we got given to us by neighbors." Crossing her arms over her chest, Reiko remarked, "I even had a cool papasan chair in my bedroom that I had discreetly lifted from an abandoned house in our neighborhood before everything was lost in the fire that Todoroki's dad started while fighting some villains."

Yaoyorozu had a mildly unsettled look on her face as she regarded the ghost girl of class 1-B. "You…you stole stuff from an abandoned house that was in the neighborhood where you and your family lives."

"Pfft, people in my neighborhood lifted stuff from that abandoned house all the fucking time," Reiko remarked in a casual manner, "It's no big deal. Hell, sometimes things were left there, and that stuff was also lifted by folks who were interested."

"The old house with the faded red roof?" Uraraka asked, then after Reiko nodded in the affirmative the gravity girl continued, "Yeah, that's where my dad got his favorite recliner. He still has said recliner right now."

* * *

With a bit of help from Inko, Uraraka and Reiko, Yaoyorozu got all of the stuff she got from the thrift store and the grocery store up to the apartment where she and her mother lives. Then, seeing that there was a great need for furniture in her and her mom's apartment, Yaoyorozu gave a relenting sigh before asking for help in getting that sofa abandoned by the dumpster up to the apartment. Uraraka's quirk made the task a snap.

"Hey Yaoyorozu, I've been wondering," Reiko began, "Why don't you use your quirk to just create what all you and your mom could use?"

"Because using my quirk like that would cause a ripple effect in the economy, and the economy shaky enough as it is due to the fall out of what happened to _that man_," Yaoyorozu began to explain, "Also, if I use my quirk to make something big like a sofa, it would take up a lot of my lipids, and given the budgeting that my mom and I have to do now, I can't exactly afford to replace my lipids at such a rate." Sighing, the formerly wealthy girl gestured to the sofa that Uraraka helped with getting up to the apartment. "…That's part of the reason why I relented and asked for help getting this sofa up here."

The three girls heard some clapping behind them, and turning around they saw Maka, Inko and Masaru looking at them. "Well girls, you really helped Maka and her daughter here out a lot," Masaru remarked, "And with what all you were able to pick up from the grocery store, they easily have enough food to last for a month if stretched properly. Hell, you can makes a good couple of meals right now with what all you got."

"Problem with that, Masaru," Maka said as she got the brown-haired man to look at her, "Neither my daughter nor I can cook meals like that. It was always handled for us by the chefs that my soon-to-be ex-husband had working for the family."

The Bakugo patriarch clapped his hands together, wearing a self-amused look on his face. "Well I think that it's about time I show everyone here where Katsuki gets his culinary skills from."

* * *

The next day at U.A., the girls of 1-A and 1-B were hanging out in the main area of the girls-only dorm building, wearing casual outfits. Yaoyorozu wore a casual outfit that consisted of a baggy pair of jeans held up with a belt, a baggy dark cream-colored t-shirt worn under a red flannel shirt that was left open in the front, and a pair of socks. When the formerly wealthy girl had come down from her dorm room wearing that outfit, Mina, Hatsume and Setsuna were all unable to take their eyes off of her.

Kyoka, somewhat influenced by her increased time as of late hanging out with the Baku-squad, snickered a bit as she pointed at Yaoyorozu. "…Wow, Yaoyorozu, I never thought that I would ever see you dress in such a fashion."

"Yeah, I think congratulations are in order," Mina snarked a bit, "After all Yaoyorozu, you have achieved the White Trash look perfectly."

"Umm, we're all Asian, Mina," Yaoyorozu pointed out.

Scoffing a bit in a mildly annoyed tone, Mina said, "Fine, you're Asian Trash." The pink-skinned girl crossed her arms over her chest, gave her head a gentle shake. "Either way, it's very amusing to see that the silver spoons that had been lodged firmly up your ass have been removed in recent events." Both Hatsume and Setsuna nodded in agreement with Mina.

"Oh come on, girls," Uraraka said, "Cut her some slack. It's not her fault that what her and her mom are going through is taking place. It's not her fault about what all had happened." Turning to regard the formerly rich girl, Uraraka remarked, "If you ever need help figuring something else out in regards to the life you and your mom now have, just give me a holler." Reiko gave a nod to show that she would offer her help as well.

Yaoyorozu, needless to say, was touched that she was being supported by friends like this, when she was in need for it now more than ever. It made her glad that she was able to get into U.A.; she wouldn't have been able to meet such awesome people if it weren't for the chance.

END, CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

Author's notes;

This chapter covers what all resulted from Yaoyorozu and her mom going from upper high class to lower middle class, just barely above upper lower class. I've personally had lived such a life (still do to an extent, but I'm doing relatively well now), and my folks and I have had to do a lot of what Uraraka and Reiko had shown to Yaoyorozu in their efforts to teach her the virtues of living frugally (the only thing they showed her that I still do is hit up the discount items shelves at my local grocery store, also I never lifted stuff from abandoned houses; that was something that I added for humor).

Anyway, the next chapter will be seeing Izuku fret over his older girlfriend's condition for a bit, but he's soon distracted by something that occurs while he, the rest of 1-A and all of 1-B are on a bus as they're making their way to a field trip destination.


	68. Chapter 68

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter sixty-eight: Wait, this plot seems familiar…

"Babe, I'm going to be fine. I'm just going to rest all day after I take that weirdo experimental medication that Recovery Girl developed to see if it'll do anything to halt or even reverse the progress of my cancer."

Izuku Midoriya, the green-eyed boy of U.A. High School was standing outside of the Bakugo residence, looking up at his older girlfriend Mitsuki, the mother of Izuku's classmate Katsuki (aka Bakugo, aka Kacchan). Izuku couldn't help but worry about Mitsuki, given that she had not only had recently been diagnosed with Breast Cancer, but due to her quirk interfering with a lot, there weren't exactly a lot of options where treatment could be pursued.

As such, Recovery Girl developed an experimental medicine that, if taken regularly, should be able to be used as an effective treatment method for quirked persons to treat their cancer with, if their quirks just so happen to render other options impractical. If the medicine turns out to be a success, then not only will Mitsuki's life be saved, but it'll be proof that Recovery Girl had been able to develop a simple medication that can treat, perhaps even cure, cancer. Just imagine how much money Recovery Girl could earn from that.

Izuku, as he looked up at Mitsuki, let out a troubled sigh while regarding the older woman with a concerned look. "Mitsuki, you know that I can't help but worry about your well-being. I'm going to be by after classes today to check on you as soon as I'm able to, even if things turn out just as Recovery Girl is banking on."

The ashy-haired woman offered a sympathetic, appreciative smile as she reached forward and ruffled the top of her younger boyfriend's head. Mitsuki couldn't help but love Inko (as a friend, of course) for birthing such a treasure as Izuku. It made her wish that Inko, with that firm if need be but still loving and gentle nature of hers, was there from the get-go to keep her (Mitsuki's) own son from developing into a complete and total terror to most people.

"Well regardless, you need to get that cute little butt of yours going," Mitsuki remarked to Izuku, "After all, if I recall correctly you and Katsuki's class have some manner of field trip to go on today." A look of curious wonder crossed Mitsuki's face. "…Where was it that you said you and the rest of your class are going to today?"

"Oh, we're going to the first national History of Pro Heroics Museum," Izuku explained, "It's a museum that's dedicated to everything related to the history of pro heroes here in Japan. There's a new exhibit opening up later today featuring Endeavor, and Endeavor himself will be there to help unveil it. Principal Nezu thinks it would be a great opportunity for my class, as well as class 1-B who is also going on the field trip, to go there and watch the unveiling ceremony. Principal Nezu was even able to arrange for Todoroki to join Endeavor in the unveiling."

Mitsuki nodded in an understanding tone. Suddenly, she stopped short, a mildly confused look on her face. "…Wait a minute, I thought that the half-n-half boy hated daddy dearest."

Izuku nodded a bit in confirmation. "Yeah, Todoroki still isn't too entirely fond of his father, but things actually have improved a bit. At least Todoroki and his dad have a healthier parent-child relationship than the one between Yaoyorozu and her father."

"Yeah, Uncle Pennybags was a right proper piece of work," Mitsuki remarked in a tone of agreement, "Hell, he probably still is, even though he no longer has his excessive wealth because the government seized it all due to his dirty laundry being aired." Patting Izuku on the shoulder, the ashy-haired woman said, "Well regardless, you ought to get going. You don't want to be late for Endeavor droning on about the history of his career while most of your male schoolmates zone out and the girls think about whatever it is that girls their age think about nowadays."

Izuku gave off a bemused sigh. "…It varies from girl to girl, to be honest."

* * *

A short while later, a large bus was parked outside of the front entry gate to U.A. Standing outside of the entry gate were everyone in class 1-A and class 1-B, and standing between them and the bus were Aizawa, Sekijiro and Hizashi. "Listen up, everyone," Aizawa said as he and the other U.A. teachers all oversaw the combined fifty students, "We're going to be heading to that pro heroes museum to attend the grand opening of the Endeavor exhibit, which will be taking place later today."

"Question, Aizawa-sensei," Todoroki said as he raised a hand, his tone making it clear that he was not in all that happy of a mood, "Do I _really_ have to help my father with the ribbon-cutting ceremony for his exhibit?"

The underground hero sighed in a knowing, understanding tone. "Nezu thinks that it would be a great opportunity for you to be in the spotlight, as being in the spotlight is something that, as pro heroes, all of you will be dealing with when you make it as pros. Also, Nezu thinks that you need to do more with your father."

"Plus your daddy's agency is covering the costs for the field trip," Hizashi pointed out, "So the very least you can do is suck it up and play nice with your papa."

Gesturing to the bus, Sekijiro said, "Now kids, you all need to figure out how all of you will be seated on the bus."

"I say we have everyone in 1-A on one side and everyone in 1-B on the other," Monoma said as he raised a hand. Turning to face his classmates, the blonde hysteric holler monkey said, "We don't want to be mixing ourselves with those Neanderthals, do we?"

Setsuna raised a hand as she offered, "I was simply going to suggest separating everyone by gender, with all of the girls either on one side and the boys on the other, or all of the girls in the front and the boys in the back."

"I propose that we organize a seating table were placement is based on the alphabetical order of everyone's last name," Tenya said as he raised a hand.

As the 1-A and 1-B students all began arguing over how all of them would be organized on the bus, everyone was cut off and turned to look at Mina when she loudly clapped her hands together. With all eyes on her, the pink-skinned girl offered, "I think that we should sit with who all we feel like sitting with. You know, have groups of friends all concentrated in the same spot, have those who are dating sitting right next to each other, stuff like that."

In what he would find to be one of the very few instances that it would ever happen, Aizawa remarked while pointing to Mina, "Alright, out of all of you here, Ashido has the most agreeable idea. Separation by gender is wrong, Monoma we're trying to get both classes to get along, and Iida your idea is way to overly complicated for me to deal with while I've only had the amount of coffee that I've had so far today. Besides, knowing a lot of you, you're probably going to want to sit next to the people you like the most, so Ashido's idea will most likely happen anyway."

As Mina pumped a fist into the air while cheering, some of the others in the group let out mildly defeated moans. After everyone had settled down, Sekijiro gestured to Hizashi while saying to the students, "Now kids, due to the fact that all of you are going on the bus, there's only going to be enough room for Hizashi, who will be driving the bus. Aizawa and I will be meeting the rest of you at the museum with Endeavor."

Without much further fanfare, the combined fifty students of 1-A and 1-B got onto the bus, with Hizashi getting on last before he sat in the driver's seat. The bus door closed, and within a couple of moments, the bus took off for its destination. Aizawa and Sekijiro looked on f or a bit as they both saw the bus drive off towards the museum. As they watched, Aizawa felt a shiver go right up his back, making him shake a bit. Sekijiro was able to catch the motion.

"Something wrong, Aizawa?"

"For some odd reason, I get the feeling that leaving Hizashi alone with all fifty of our combined students will end poorly."

"You think that the fifty of them will tear him apart since he's alone with them?"

The underground hero gently shook his head in the negative. "No, I get the feeling that Hizashi will leave them all shellshocked since his craziness will be exposed to them unsupervised since _they're_ alone with _him_."

* * *

The combined fifty students of 1-A and 1-B were all chatting amicably as the bus made its way to the museum. As Mina had predicted, groups of friends were all sitting around right next to each other, and likewise official couples were seated together. Case in point, Izuku sat in an area that was concentrated with his friends Todoroki, Tenya, Uraraka, Tsuyu and Shinso; also, they were joined by Reiko, Eunice, Tokoyami and Sakaki, all of whom were sitting with whichever boy (or in Tokoyami's case Tsuyu) that they were in a romantic relationship with. Sure, it made things seem a bit crowded, but it wasn't the only instance of a fairly large group that was a mix of friends and romantic relationships.

Just look at the group that Bakugo was commanding.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," Tenya said as he was addressing both Uraraka and Reiko, "You girls took Yaoyorozu _where_ to do _what_ yesterday afternoon?"

"Well, there's this one abandoned house in the neighborhood where my family lives, right?" Reiko began, "Surprisingly enough it was never damaged in the fight that Todoroki's dad had with those villains that one time, but that's not the point. The point is that Uraraka and I-"

Reiko was cut off when Hizashi called out to the back while addressing everyone, "Hey listeners, can you all keep it down for a bit? I just got a call on the phone that I need to address."

Everyone had settled down, although after that Yaoyorozu spoke up to ask, "Are you sure it's safe to talk on the phone while driving, Hizashi-sensei?"

"It's one of those hands-free things built into the bus, so that I can drive while talking," Hizashi reassured the formerly wealthy girl. With that out of the way, the cockatiel-haired pro hero spoke into the phone set. "Yo, this here be Hizashi Yamada. How you bez?"

"Listen to me, and listen to me good, hero," a strong voice said as it came from the other end of the call, a voice that was very clearly that of a man unless voice-changing technology was being used to alter it slightly, "I have placed a bomb on the underside of the bus that you and all of those little would-be heroes are on. If the bus goes below fifty-two miles per hour, the bomb will go off, killing you and everyone else on board."

Everyone was able to hear what the man on the other end of the call said, and promptly they all began to freak the hell out. Hizashi had to yell with his quirk to get everyone to settle down, and the noise generated by all of that chaos made Eunice freeze up into a fetal position as she held her hands over her ears, a look of wincing pain on her face. Once the noise levels had died down, Hizashi asked the man on the other end of the call what he wanted.

"I will be holding you and those fledgling heroes hostage until five-hundred billion yen is deposited into a private, untraceable route that will take the money straight to my Swiss bank account," the mysterious voice said, "I have already informed the rest of the necessary peoples of my intentions so that they have the time needed to meet my demands, unless they want to have a bunch of dead fledgling heroes whose families they all have to inform about some tragic losses that they suffered. You all will have two hours until time's up for the others to act. If you want both yourself and all of the fledgling heroes to live, keep driving around."

The hearts of everyone on the bus sank as the mysterious person on the other end of the line hung up, leaving them all worried for their life. After that, all of the panic had started, with a good many of the 1-A and 1-B students all freaking the hell out. Ibara, predictably, started to pray to God to ask him for his divine help in saving everyone on the bus. Ibara's prayer was interrupted when Hizashi yelled at everyone to calm down.

Once everyone was silent, the cockatiel-haired pro hero looked over everyone that was on the bus. "Listen up, listeners," Hizashi said as he clearly sounded like he was going to try to get everyone to relax and calm down, "Knowing Aizawa, Sekijiro and the others, they got all of everyone scrambling around to see to rescuing all of us. They aren't going to let anybody on this bus blow up." Hizashi, never turning back to look at the students as he had to keep his eyes on the road, let out a troubled sigh.

"…_At least I _hope_ that they can save all of us_," Hizashi thought worriedly.

* * *

Over at the police station, Aizawa, Sekijiro, Nezu and Toshinori were in a large police meeting room, gathered around with Detective Naomasa and a few other police officers. Naomasa had been put in charge of managing the case, and the officers plus few members of the U.A. staff were all helping him. The good detective had a set up established as he and the others were in the middle of trying to resolve the case of the speeding bus that held fifty U.A. first years and one teacher who were all on a trip of doom.

"This is insane!" Sekijiro exclaimed, his eyes wide with worry, "How can one person hold fifty U.A. first years and Hizashi hostage like this? Why didn't we even give the bus a thorough going over before it was approved?" The Blood Hero clutched the sides of his head as he looked up at the ceiling in the room everyone was in. "This is a major disaster!"

"And we're all trying to avert further disaster right now," Naomasa remarked, "The last thing that Japan needs right now, especially since we're still trying to fix the economy since it was wrecked in the fallout that resulted from the taking down of Ryoga Yaoyorozu, is for fifty dead first-years in high school to end up on the evening news tonight!"

"That's not even the worst part," Aizawa remarked. Doing a similar gesture as Sekijiro was previously doing, the underground hero continued, "Those fifty students have all been left alone with _Hizashi_! There's no way that this can get any worse!"

At that moment, the landline phone that was part of Naomasa's set up went off, prompting the good detective to pick it up and flip a switch on the set up so that everyone in the room can hear what the other end was saying. "Hello?" Naomasa said as he spoke into the phone.

"Yo, Toshi's police buddy!" Hizashi spoke from the other end, "Glad that I was able to reach you again!" As everyone in the room sighed in relief as they got confirmation that everyone that was on the bus was still alive, the cockatiel-haired pro hero said, "Anyway, I got some good news. As it turns out, I'm not the only pro hero on the bus."

"Huh?" Naomasa said, sounding just as confused as everyone that was in the room with him was looking right now.

Present Mic gave a confirming hum before speaking up, "Oh yeah. As it turns out, Nemuri fell asleep on one of the seats in the way back of the bus, and no one noticed her until after all of this bus hostage stuff started up because the noise everyone's panicking was making had woken her up. So now there's _two_ trusted pro heroes keeping an eye on Aizawa's and Sekijiro's students!"

Aizawa had a horrified look on his face that made it clear that he had just been presented with one of his worst-case nightmare scenarios; fifty U.A. first years, all of them panicking due to thinking that they were all about to die, were on a bus that would blow up if it got below a certain speed, and all of those students were alone with Present Mic and Midnight. After his right eye twitched a little bit, the underground hero proceeded to inhale as much as he possibly could before he proceeded to express how the news that he and everyone else had gotten just now made him feel.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

* * *

At the front of the bus that was unable to stop otherwise everyone on board was doomed, Hizashi stood and looked into the bus while the recently discovered Nemuri was driving. "Everyone, you have got to calm down," Hizashi said, "The police and the other heroes are as we speak working to save all of us from getting blown to kingdom come! None of us are going to die!"

"You heard what that bastard demanded," Nezuko, the new girl in class 1-A, snapped angrily, "He wants half a trillion yen! And he's only giving the people who can save us two hours tops to come up with the money before he decides to trigger the bomb under the bus! I swear, if I end up dying here regardless of the details, my ghost will find that son of a bitch and haunt his sorry ass until he himself dies!"

"I no want being dead!" Pony cried out in a panicked tone, "I never even had good passion time with boy yet!"

Standing up forcefully, Mina shouted, "Bakugo! You and Pony need to make sweet monkey love to each other right now! We're all about to die anyways, so the very least you can do to comfort Pony is to give her your flower while she gives you hers!"

"I'm not going to fuck my girlfriend on the bus, Pinky!" Bakugo yelled.

"Everyone calm down!" Hizashi yelled, "There's no need to have panic love right now! We're going to all get out of this alive!"

Hizashi's calling for everyone to calm down had little effect, as the fifty U.A. first years were still freaking out. The cockatiel-haired pro hero was freaking out a little bit as well, even though he was trying to put on a brave face. Hizashi prayed to any and all deities who would care enough to listen to get him, Nemuri and all of the students out of this mess. He didn't want to see the lives of so many awesome people cut short due to a terrorist taking all of them hostage, and he still had a sweet gig as a pro hero and radio personality to work with. There was just so much awesome left for all of them to do.

* * *

Back with the U.A. staff and the police, a group of police officers along with Nezu and Toshinori stayed at the station while Naomasa led another group of police officers, who were joined by Aizawa and Sekijiro, in a raid on a location that they were able to trace down thanks to the hard work of the boys in blue. The police and their hero allies but through into the house through all possible routes; all doors, all windows, and an officer with a quirk that let him shrink himself down to a doll-like size came down through the chimney and rolled out of the fireplace before he grew back to normal size as he rolled and drew his gun.

As such, the police, Aizawa and Sekijiro had a group of half a dozen low-level villains surrounded, with the only female in the party seated at a table that had some computers and other related tech set up at. After all of the villains had been subdued, the police checked the set-up and saw, just as the hostage taker had threatened, there was a bomb under the bus that held the fifty U.A. first years, Hizashi and Nemuri.

The police were able to determine that the bomb wasn't set on a timer that would make it go off automatically, so it would only go off if the command had was given. "Clever," Naomasa said as he looked over everything, his gaze and tone making it clear he was still very much unamused with what all the villains had been plotting, "It looks like the villains were going to keep their word of letting the hostages live if the payment had been made."

"You bastards!" the lone female villain screamed angrily as she and her fellows were all lead out of the place in quirk-suppressing cuffs, "This is majorly fucked up! Why couldn't you just fucking give us the money we demanded? Or are you all too fucking greedy to not want to pay up even if lives are on the line?"

Giving the female villain a serious glare, Naomasa retorted in a bitter tone, "I'll tell you what's majorly fucked up. Taking two U.A. teachers and fifty U.A. first years hostage and demanding an unreasonably high amount of money that cannot be afforded by the Japanese economy right now due to what all is going on."

"Not to mention the fact that the two U.A. teachers that have been left alone with fifty kids in the first year are Present Mic and Midnight," Aizawa added, feeling very much like it was one of the most pertinent points that had to be made. After Aizawa said his piece and the low-level villains were all led out, Naomasa proceeded to call up Hizashi and Nemuri, letting them know that the bomb would not go off unless the switch that was with him was triggered. They could bring the bus to a stop safely and let everyone off.

The two teachers on the other end let out sighs of relief as Nemuri proceeded to pull the bus over into an empty field, park it, and get everyone off of the bus. As everyone waited in that field, they all saw some police and a few bomb specialist squad vehicles come over. The police got the students to a safe distance while the specialists disabled and removed the bomb from under the bus. With all of the danger averted, the fifty U.A. first years all let out relieved cheers. All of the danger had passed, much to their relief.

* * *

That evening at the Bakugo residence, Izuku sat on the sofa as Mitsuki, her arms around the green-eyed boy, hugged him tightly as she cried over how relieved she was that he and all of the others had made it out of the chaos from earlier in the day safely. Mitsuki had previously hugged Bakugo in a similar manner, and was now focusing on her younger boyfriend, who not only had been there for her since the very beginning of their relationship, but was willingly staying by her side as she was either going to die from her cancer or fight tooth and nail to live thanks to the help from the experimental medicine that Recovery Girl had developed.

"Yeah, I was honestly freaking out as well while me and everyone else on the bus were being held hostage by the bomb that some villains had hidden under the bus before it took off for the museum," Izuku said in an understanding tone as Mitsuki continued to hug him, "Oh, speaking of the museum, that field trip was canceled. I also heard that the unveiling of the new Endeavor exhibit had to be pushed back as well due to the situation that occurred earlier today."

Mitsuki let out an amused chuckle. "Heh, well I bet that put a bee in Endeavor's underwear."

Izuku smiled in an understanding manner again, knowing full well that Endeavor, despite being the current number one pro hero in Japan, often was made into the butt of jokes that a lot of the people liked to tell. Izuku asked to get up because he needed to use the bathroom. Mitsuki gave an agreeing nod before letting Izuku go so he could get up and go answer the call of nature. He went to the bathroom and did what he had to do, feeling relieved that all worries had been put firmly behind him.

…It wasn't until the moment Izuku exited the bathroom that he heard Mitsuki throwing up out in the living room. Rushing out, Izuku was evenly shocked and horrified to see that not only was Mitsuki sitting hunched over where she had thrown up, but there was also a bit of blood mixed into the ocean of vomit.

Acting right away, Izuku proceeded to call the hospital, then after they sent out an ambulance to pick Mitsuki up, Izuku proceeded to call Recovery Girl and inform her about what had just happened. The green-haired cinnamon roll, worried tears already rolling down the sides of his face, prayed that his older girlfriend would get to the hospital in time to be saved from whatever it was that what harming her.

END, CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

Author's notes;

Admittedly, this chapter contains a fair bit of filler, but it does also showcase more of the new dynamic in the relationship between Izuku and Mitsuki. Speaking of the latter, her case had just taken a turn for the worse, and this will be covered more in detail during the events of the next chapter. Things will be reaching a fever pitch soon, but it will see Izuku and Mitsuki at their best as they show just how much they truly care for one another.


	69. Chapter 69

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter sixty-nine: Love

Mitsuki Bakugo was lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to all of the usual hospital stuff that you'd imagine when you hear that someone is hooked up to stuff at a hospital. Just a few hours prior to now, the ashy-haired woman, the specter of death looming over her due to having a cancer that can't be treated effectively due to her quirk, had not only vomited rather badly, but there was some blood mixed into said vomit as well. Mitsuki was still alive, but she was resting right now.

…She was _weak_ right now.

Standing around in the room Mitsuki was resting in were her ex-husband Masaru and their son Katsuki, as well as Inko Midoriya (Mitsuki's friend and Masaru's girlfriend) and Inko's son Izuku (who is Mitsuki's boyfriend). All four of them looked worriedly at the weakened woman, who was fighting for her life right now. None of the four who stood in that room knew quite what to say at that moment. …Well, Mitsuki's and Masaru's son had a few words.

"So…" Bakugo began, his tone dangerously calm, "…This is how you plan to go out?" The ashy-haired teen scoffed incredulous. "…Yeah, I'm calling fucking bullshit on this."

"Katsuki…" Masaru said, not even a hint of admonishing in his tone over his son's foul language; he knew full well that his and Mitsuki's son was hurting, no matter how much he may try to hide or deny it.

Bakugo spun around, looking at the other three who were standing in Mitsuki's room at the hospital with him. "This is not how I would have imagined the old hag to go out, damn it!" Bakugo said, his voice barely quiet enough to not break the 'no loud volume rules' at the hospital, "You all knew her for years! You know as well as I do that she's so full of piss and vinegar that it would take All Might's worst fucking enemy to kill her, and even then she would leave that fucker with some serious fucking scars!"

The explosive teen, his energy from that tangent spent, slowly turned to look at where his mom laid in that hospital bed. He shuddered a bit before Inko was the first to hear choked sobs escape from her best friend's son. "…Not like this. Not all weak and helpless as she is now. Going out like this doesn't befit mom at all…"

The four of them stood in silence for a few moments, the only noised not made from gear in the hospital room being those of Bakugo's choked-back sobs. After that time, the four of them all looked over to see a hospital doctor and Recovery Girl enter the room, the latter looking rather guilty and remorseful. "I…take it that you all are Mitsuki's loved ones?" the hospital doctor said to Inko, Masaru and the boys.

"Yes, I recognize all of them," Recovery Girl said before any of them could speak, "They're all here with Mitsuki Bakugo." The nurse of U.A. let out a troubled, resigned sigh. "…I'm afraid that I have some bad news for you all. It's about the medicine that I gave Mitsuki, the medicine that I developed as an alternative treatment for her Breast Cancer. You see, under normal circumstances, the medicine would actually have been making progress right now, but there was an unforeseen complication."

"What is it, Recovery Girl?" Inko asked as she regarded the older woman, fear and worry evident in her tone.

Once more, Recovery Girl sighed. "The medicine reacted to the presence of glycerin in Mitsuki, which was made by her quirk. The medicine and the glycerin…did not get along, to put things in simple words. The violent clash aggravated her illness, made her weaker. I am so very terribly sorry that this all happened due to my work."

"Chiyo, you are technically free from legal troubles since Mitsuki signed all of those papers consenting to test out the medicine you developed," the doctor pointed out.

Recovery Girl gently shook her head. "Then instead of being hit with a well-deserved lawsuit or stripped of my medical license or even jailtime, my punishment will be to live with the guilt of knowing that the medicine that I gave to Mitsuki, rather than halt her death as was the intention, actually sped up the process of said death." Everyone else in the hospital room went wide-eyed with shock; Mitsuki, according to the prognosis that the doctor and Recovery Girl had reached, was going to be dying sooner than she would have if she had never taken the medicine.

Izuku, swallowing the nervous lump in his throat, took a worried step forward. "…Do either of you know how long she has left? An estimate?"

The doctor and Recovery Girl both turned to face one another, looked at each other with guilty, resigned looks on their faces. The doctor nodded once as he gestured to Recovery Girl, who gave a curt, understanding nod before the both of them turned back to face Izuku, Bakugo, Inko and Masaru. "…At best, we'd say she's got about twelve hours left."

Instantly, Inko fell to her knees and began to cry her eyes out, prompting Masaru to rush over to her. As for Izuku and Bakugo, both stood there with shell-shocked looks on their faces. Neither of them could believe what U.A.'s school nurse had just said; Mitsuki, the brash, bold and proud woman who was practically unstoppable, had at best half a day left before she bit it. Everyone who was in that room to be there for Mitsuki had a dreading feeling that it was going to happen eventually, but none of them could have predicted that it would happen this quickly.

Mitsuki Bakugo was going to _die _before today ended.

"We can wake her up," the doctor said, his tone very clearly somber, "So you can tell her the news, get certain affairs in order, tell her final good-byes." The group all agreed that it would be best to wake Mitsuki up and let her know what all was going on, what was going to happen before the sun set. The doctor and Recovery Girl both nodded in understanding before they took their leave, to go get what was needed to properly wake Mitsuki up from her induced sleep.

As they all sat alone in that room, surrounding the sleeping Mitsuki, Izuku was the first to break the somber silence. "…So she's going to die in twelve hours at most, huh?"

"That is what they confirmed, sweetie," Inko replied.

Izuku looked like he was deep in thought, inhaling and exhaling silently for a few moments before he finally spoke up. "…Then I won't be leaving this room until that time occurs." Inko, Masaru and Bakugo all looked at Izuku with surprised looks on their faces. "I told Mitsuki that I was not going to let her die alone," Izuku said firmly, "That I would stay with her until her time was called. I never expected that my word was going to be tested this soon, but I'm going to be sticking to it all the same."

Inko, her eyes still watery with tears, looked at her son like he was more than qualified for sainthood. As for Masaru and even Bakugo, they regarded the green-haired cinnamon roll with looks of impressed pride. Izuku, keeping his resolved expression, walked over to one of the chairs in Mitsuki's hospital room and sat down in it. "Kacchan," Izuku began, "Do you know of that one pencil bag that Mitsuki always keeps at her computer desk at the house? The one she keeps a few flash drives in?"

"Oh yeah, I know of it," Bakugo replied, "It's some zipped up cloth with a design of that Saki Nikaido chick from that group of actresses that star on Saga Stories. It shows her flipping the bird to whoever it looking right at the bag. What of it?"

"That pencil bag, or at least one of the flash drives stored in it, is going to be very important in the next couple of days," Izuku explained, "Can you go find it and make sure it doesn't get lost?" Surprised by himself because he found he was listening to that damn nerd Deku, Bakugo nodded a few times in agreement before he ran out of the hospital room his mother was resting in. After Bakugo had left, Izuku turned to regard Inko and Masaru.

Seeing the look of determination on her son's face, Inko gave a resigned, knowing sigh. "Well it's a good thing that there's a bathroom in this hospital room." Seeing the look of confusion on her son's face in response to that remark, the green-haired woman explained, "Well since you're going to be staying here until Mitsuki…" Inko stopped, found that she had to force out what the next part was going to be. "…Until she passes, you'll be needed to relieve yourself at least once. Also, I'll be leaving to get some snacks and drinks for you from the vending machines so that you won't get hungry or thirsty or anything."

Masaru nodded in agreement. "I'll be going with Inko, partly because I'm kind of in the mood for something to snack on myself." The two adults left the room, leaving Izuku alone with his older, dying girlfriend. He turned to look at her where she laid; while resting like that, Mitsuki didn't look like she was in pain or anything. In fact, she actually looked like she was at peace, even though Izuku could tell full well she was still breathing.

A luxury that she would only have for the next twelve hours at best.

* * *

Over at U.A., Nezu was sitting in his office alone, going over a few files at his desk, when he heard a knock at the door that was followed by the call of Toshinori Yagi. Nezu called for the former Symbol of Peace to enter, but was immediately taken a bit aback by the troubled look on the blonde matchstick of a man's face. "Is there something the matter, All Might?" the quirked animal principal of U.A. asked.

Toshinori let out a troubled sigh. "…I just got word from Recovery Girl concerning Young Bakugo's mother." Looking up at the clock on the wall in Nezu's office, Toshinori said, "She's not long for this world."

"Oh my goodness!" Nezu remarked, his normally stoic expression slipping in an extraordinarily rare moment to show he shocked and sympathetic he was being. Toshinori then proceeded to fill Nezu in on what else he knew about the situation; the former Symbol of Peace covered every last detail he knew that involved his protégé Izuku, who is in a relationship with the ashy-haired woman. A good few on the U.A. staff had reservations about one of their first years being in a romantic relationship with a woman a little over twice his age, but they let it go for the most part, especially given that they knew that things never got physical between Izuku and Mitsuki.

After ending on the part about Izuku's intentions on staying with Mitsuki for the last few hours she was expected to live, Nezu nodded in understanding. "…Luckily for him classes have been canceled today, so he won't be missing anything. But even if they weren't, I'd personally excuse him, given the situation he's dealing with."

Toshinori arched a mildly confused eyebrow. "…I didn't know classed had been canceled today, Nezu. Did something come up?"

"Some…private issues that I and a few others have to attend to, yes," Nezu replied before he proceeded going about to let the rest of the U.A. staff know that classes were being canceled for the day. Toshinori, never one to doubt the quirked animal before him, nodded to his boss before he turned around to leave Nezu to his work.

There was also a nagging feeling in the back of Toshinori's head that Nezu might actually be canceling classes today specifically for Izuku so that the green-eyed boy did not have to leave his dying girlfriend's side. If that really were the case, then the former Symbol of Peace, in addition to swearing to keep the idea a secret, felt that Nezu would be the first animal in the history of the world to be qualified for sainthood, that magnificent bastard.

* * *

Nezuko, the new girl that had recently been put into class 1-A, was sitting along in her dorm room in the girls-only dorm building located on U.A. grounds. After being told that classes had been canceled for the day, the demonic girl gave a mildly annoyed scoff before she turned back around, headed to her dorm room, got changed into a casual outfit consisting of a sleeveless tank top and a pair of shorts, and sat cross-legged on her bed with all the lights off.

She sat there, in silence and in darkness save for what natural light came in through the sliding glass door that led out to the small patio her dorm room had, and thought about what all was going on. Call her a cynic, but Nezuko had an itching feeling that something bad might have happened to someone. She had this specific feeling in the pit of her stomach before, and when she had that feeling, she learned later that day that her granduncle had died.

The demonic girl still remembered Granduncle Inosuke, from whom she got her wolf's head mask that she made a part of her hero outfit. The death of her granduncle was the first time in as long as she could remember that Nezuko had cried; it was the only such incident that she could recall to date. Nezuko and her beloved granduncle were very close; it was from him that Nezuko got a lot of her tenacity, her hunger for getting into a good scrape against whatever idiot was the unlucky asshole whose ass she would kick.

Those were fun times, indeed.

Nezuko let out a sigh as she continued to think about what all had led to her meeting Izuku, offering him her sympathies that day in Gym Gamma where she had him fight her; she would most likely never even meet Izuku if it wasn't for the fact that some idiot who used to be in class 1-A got expelled for some reason, and she was placed in 1-A because Principal Nezu wanted to keep all of the hero course classes at max capacity. She met Izuku because of all of that.

She fell backwards, landing with a light 'flump' with her head being nestled on top of her pillows. Nezuko had no idea what all her path in life would take her now; if things go without incident, then she should be graduating with her classmates in 1-A. That means she'd get to be a pro hero after joining on with a hero agency. Nezuko already got a provisional hero license, so she had the basis of the legal backing to be able to go pro upon graduation.

Heh, a hero. The demonic girl never thought that she'd get to be a hero, not that the path was an unappealing one to her. Nezuko simply thought she'd be on the business side of pro heroics is all, but now from the looks of it, some of her former classmates in 1-K might end up helping her with her path as a pro hero one day. Who knows? Nezuko put all of that aside as she turned over on her bed so that she faced the wall her bed was up against. A scowl formed on Nezuko's face as she thought about what might have triggered the feeling she had in the pit of her stomach.

It was not a pleasant feeling to Nezuko at all.

* * *

Izuku sat in that chair as he waited for the doctor and Recovery Girl to get back to wake Mitsuki up so that she could speak with him, Bakugo, Inko and Masaru one last time, or at least until she finally gave out and passed from the world. As Izuku waited with a mix of emotions in his heart, he began to wonder about philosophical aspects related to death, specifically the afterlife and if Mitsuki would go to one after she died. Honestly, Izuku was never all that religious, but the idea of his older girlfriend being taken care of in a beautiful realm after she passed gave him some bit of comfort to contemplate.

The foremost example that came to his mind was the example in Christianity, due to how often his schoolmate in 1-B Ibara expresses her faith and the various aspects of the related dogma. Izuku liked the idea that Mitsuki would be living it up in a white, fluffy paradise after she slipped from this world, especially if what he heard some people say about how a person in heaven gets a customized place just for them; Izuku had to suppress a chuckle as he tried imagining what sort of shenanigans Mitsuki would get up to in such a situation.

But that idea wasn't all that Izuku considered, it wasn't the only afterlife he thought about; thanks to interactions with Allison Ace, the Viking Hero Asgardian, Izuku had also thought about the Viking afterlife, Valhalla. According to what Allison's younger twin brother Aggro, the Samurai Hero Sengoku, said on the matter, entrance into Valhalla usually requires that one has to die in battle. If Mitsuki's battle with cancer counted, then Izuku bet that she'd have fun drinking mead and eating roasted haunches of various random animals until she and everyone else in the dining halls had to go and fight in Ragnarök.

Given that Mitsuki is where Kacchan gets his bold, powerful personality from, Izuku bet that Mitsuki would fit in just fine with those who were also vouched for by the Norse gods.

Izuku was about to contemplate what other various afterlives are out there, but he was roused from his thoughts as he heard the door to the hospital room open. Looking up, Izuku saw that the doctor and Recovery Girl had returned. "Where's your mother, Katsuki and his father?" asked the school nurse of U.A. as she turned to look at Izuku, "The doctor and I are going to be waking Mitsuki up right now. We can't afford to wait for everyone to return first, given how little time the poor dear has left."

"Mom and Mr. Bakugo left to go get some snacks for me since I'm not leaving this room because Mitsuki's going to be having her final moments in here," Izuku explained, "And I had asked Kacchan to go track down a specific pencil bag that Mitsuki kept flash drives in, given that one of the flash drives inside is going to be very important in the next few-" Izuku was cut off when Bakugo, holding a pencil bag depicting Saki Nikaido, from Saga Stories, flipping the bird entered the hospital room that everyone was in.

Holding up the pencil bag, Bakugo said, "Here's the fucker right here, Deku."

"Thanks for finding it, Kacchan," Izuku replied, "And you're just in time, too. The doctor and Recovery Girl are about to wake Mitsuki up."

Bakugo huffed out a sigh that sounded as if he were saying that it was about damn time. The explosive teen walked over to stand next to where Izuku sat as they watched the doctor and Recovery Girl work their medical magic. A few minutes later, Mitsuki's eyelids slowly fluttered a bit, and a few minutes after that, Mitsuki was coherent enough to look around and talk as she saw everyone in the room.

"…Heh, the hell did I eat last night…" were the first words Mitsuki spoke since before she vomited horribly in the living room of her home.

Izuku and Bakugo both let out relieved sighs, with Bakugo's containing a hint that suggested he knew his mother would be like that. After the boys expressed relief that Mitsuki was awake now, the doctor and Recovery Girl got the ashy-haired woman's attention. "Mitsuki, I'm afraid that we have some bad news concerning the medicine that Recovery Girl gave you," the doctor said in a grim tone, "The medicine, rather than treat your condition, actually aggravated things, up to the point that you don't have all that much longer to live by our estimations."

Mitsuki, despite the fact that she had just been told that she's going to die soon, actually started laughing a bit. It was a weak laugh, but it was sincere enough to reflect how Mitsuki was feeling in that moment. "…Well fuck, I better call my lawyer and hand him that one flash drive that I keep in my Saga Stories pencil bag. It contains the last will and testament that I wrote up." She let out an embarrassed chuckle. "Although to be honest, it's at best in rough draft form. If my impending death doesn't kill me, my lawyer probably will."

"Wait, that's what's on the one flash drive you've been using?" Izuku said, getting Mitsuki to look at him, "I thought that you were writing up individual letters you wanted peopled you cared about to read after you had died, telling them stuff like how you always cared about them and that, if you wanted to go the religious route, that you would always be watching over them."

"Heh, I plan to join Gilgamesh and Enkidu so that we can form a legendary power trio and go on the dankest of epic adventures," Mitsuki remarked, "But that's beside the point. No Izuku, I was doing boring legal-related stuff to cover what all I'm going to be leaving behind after I bite it." After some help from Recovery Girl, Mitsuki was able to call for her lawyer and get him to come over to the hospital; he just so happened to be the very same lawyer that Mitsuki had used when she got divorced from Masaru.

That would end up making things a bit awkward, Mitsuki admitted.

The pencil bag was handed to Mitsuki, and she unzipped it, pulled the specific flash drive out and handed it to her lawyer. "It's a word document, just so you know," Mitsuki said, "And it's kind of in rough draft form. However, it does have details on who all I'm leaving stuff to, as well as who gets what. I hope you can straighten it up for me."

"That's part of the job of a lawyer, Mitsuki," the lawyer remarked, "And thank goodness that you actually took my advice when you told me that you were dying due to your cancer. Having any form of last will and testament written up will keep all manner of problems from arising after you pass away."

Mitsuki nodded in agreement and was about to say something else. However, and to the horror of everyone in the room, the ashy-haired woman suddenly began coughing violently, and the monitor that was keeping track of Mitsuki's vitals was making a lot of loud noises. As the doctor rushed out while yelling for some help, Recovery Girl was able to get Mitsuki's coughing under enough control for the woman to speak well enough.

Despite herself, her condition, Mitsuki was able to offer a weak laugh that showed she found some manner of amusement in all of this. "…I think that coughing fit just now is a sign that I'm about to bite it soon," Mitsuki said weakly as she turned her head to address Izuku and Bakugo, both of them looking at her with looks of sad heartbreak on their respective faces. Looking to her younger boyfriend in particular, Mitsuki said, "Izuku…thanks. Thanks for keeping to the word that you swore by when you said you wouldn't' let me die alone. It kind of sucks that I'm going to be leaving you alone, though. You do intend to move on and not dwell on me forever, right?"

"Like I said, Mitsuki," Izuku said as tears began rolling down the sides of his face, "I planned to stay with you until your time came. I plan to mourn you for a bit after you pass. But yes, I will move on eventually."

The ashy-haired woman offered a weak smile. "…Good. I'd feel like a dick if I knew I was keeping such a good thing all to myself. I bet the next girl you get will enjoy all of the good stuff you can offer her." Mitsuki gave another weak chuckle. "…I bet that you'll be a lot like your dad, Izuku, when it comes to your tastes."

"Huh?" Izuku said, a look of confusion on his face.

"You're going to scope out a chubby girl with a big, plump butt."

Bakugo, being presented with the idea that Deku was into fat girls, was unable to suppress some chuckling as Izuku blushed out of embarrassment. "Mitsuki…" Izuku moaned in an embarrassed tone at his older girlfriend's teasing.

Mitsuki let out a few playful, yet weak with her impending death, laughs. "Sorry, just wanted to tease you one last time, babe." Mitsuki closed her eyes and offered a weak smile, a smile that was interrupted only by a few bits of coughing. By that point, the doctor returned with a few of the other members of the hospital's medical staff. They did what all they could to try and stave off Mitsuki's impending end, to at the very least buy time for Inko and Masaru to return from wherever it was that they were at.

At Mitsuki's request, Izuku was allowed to hold her right hand as the doctors were tending to her. She wanted that one last bit of contact with someone she held dear to her heart if this really was going to be her end. Izuku naturally agreed to honor this request from Mitsuki as all of the doctors, who were joined by Recovery Girl, put in every last bit of their efforts to keep Mitsuki around long enough. To their credit, they were able to buy enough time for Inko and Masaru to get back; they had apparently decided to get Izuku some take-out from a burger place, figuring it would be a more substantial meal than a small bit of snacks from the vending machines down on the ground floor of the hospital.

Regardless of the situation, Inko and Masaru where there with Izuku and Bakugo. All four of the most important people left in what little life Mitsuki had left were there, keeping her company in her final moments. A few minutes after Inko and Masaru got back, the one monitor made a very long ringing noise, which prompted the doctors to double their efforts to try to revive Mitsuki. After another few minutes of their frantic working, the head doctor called everyone off, gave a resigned, gentle headshake. There as nothing more that could be done, so the doctor called it as Mitsuki's loved ones were there to bear witness.

"Mitsuki Bakugo has died. The time is eight-o-two PM."

Everyone cried, Izuku most of all.

His girlfriend had died while he was holding her hand.

END, CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

Author's notes;

Sorry if things ended for Mitsuki sooner than what a lot of you expected, but I really only had five chapters for this arc planned out, maybe six if I can stretch the funeral and will reading aspects a bit. But yeah, this arc is going to be ending soon, after which point I will be able to get to work on what will be the last arc of this story. Yes, after this arc is finished, there will only be one arc left before 'A couple that will go down in legend' is brought to a close. Thankfully, what I have planned for the last arc will make things for it a far happier affair than what had occurred here. I'll be seeing you all later.


	70. Chapter 70

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter seventy: Mitsuki

There was a surprising amount of people who came to the service for Mitsuki Bakugo, who had lost her battle with Breast Cancer a week ago. Everyone was dressed for the funeral service, appropriate colors and clothing and whatnot. It was to the surprise of Bakugo that everyone in both his class as well as everyone in 1-B had come to the funeral service. Additionally, some of the pro heroes who taught at U.A. also came; and to think that he assumed only he, Izuku, Inko and Masaru would be there.

Just how popular was Mitsuki, exactly?

Everyone was seated in the pews as the minister walked up to the podium in front of everyone so that he could address the people who came to see Mitsuki off to the great beyond. He cleared his throat before beginning, picking up a sheet of paper that was laying on the podium that he would be reading from as it held the eulogy. "Mitsuki Salazar Enkidu Dovahkiin Hinokagatsuchi Tyrion Bakugo was a woman of many things," the minister began, "One of which is a jokster; her actual full name was simply Mitsuki Hanamaru-Bakugo."

"_Her maiden name was Hanamaru_?" Inko thought in confusion as she and everyone else listened to the eulogy; even when dead, Mitsuki continues to surprise her closest friend.

"Mitsuki's life was one of great adventure, of great struggle," the minister went on, "One of the greatest struggles of all was being a divorced woman who was still responsible for a child. One of her greatest fears was that, when he was old enough, her son Katsuki would bring home a…" Looking at what was written, the minister, with a critical eye, decided to say something that was written a little different. "…Bring home an improper girl." Continuing, the minister said, "She was relieved to find that Katsuki had instead brought home a…a magic horse girl?"

Bakugo, where he sat in the audience, had a confused, unamused look on his face as he not only was a little pissed that his late mother still referred to Pony as a 'magic horse girl', but he was also curious as to just what was really written on the eulogy, as the minister was very clearly ad-libbing a good bit of it. Indeed, a good many of the people in the audience were all wondering just who wrote Mitsuki's eulogy, but Izuku, from where he sat, had a strong hunch that Mitsuki had written it herself before she died, and had stipulated that the eulogy she wrote be read aloud at her funeral service. That made sense given that the first thing that the minister said was what had been entered as Mitsuki's name, which was read at the beginning.

Similar to his mother, Izuku was also surprised to learn that his late girlfriend's maiden name was Hanamaru. He would never have expected that.

"Mitsuki leaves behind an ex-husband," the minister said as he read out who Mitsuki had left behind when she died, "A son, a best friend, a boyfriend, and a…" Once more, the minister looked at what was written. "…No, absolutely not. I refuse to read aloud that Mitsuki left behind a strong desire to kick some boy named Neito Monoma square in the balls." Monoma, where he sat in the audience, had a wide-eyed look of surprise on his face; a few students from both 1-A and 1-B all had to suppress some chuckling.

Upon hearing the suppressed chuckling coming from the audience, the minister said with an embarrassed look on his face, "Umm, everyone please forget what I had just said right now."

…

After the funeral service, everyone gathered at the Bakugo house for a party that was thrown there to celebrate the awesome life that was Mitsuki. As everyone hung out, Izuku, with a notable uncomfortable look on his face, found the original copy of Mitsuki's eulogy and took it over to Bakugo, to show what it actually said, including what all the minister refused to say out loud during the service a few hours ago.

The ashy-haired teen scanned the written words of his late mother for a bit until he found the part that talked about Mitsuki's greatest fears concerning him. "…SHE THOUGHT THAT I WAS GAY?!" Bakugo exclaimed at the top of his lungs, very clearly pissed to have read what his late mother had worried about when it came to him, "WHAT IN THE ABSOLUTE FUCK WAS WRONG WITH THAT OLD HAG?!"

Hearing their friend scream angrily, the whole of the Baku-squad came over to where Bakugo was yelling up a storm. "Yo, Bakugo, what's wrong, dude?" Sero asked in a curious tone, a look of sympathy on his face since Bakugo did just lose his mother.

Turning to face his squad, Bakguo said, "It turns out that my mom was really afraid that I would bring home another boy because she was somehow under the impression that I was gay! And to make the whole shit-show even worse, the old hag was also under the impression that I had a thing for Kirishima!"

The crimson-haired boy had a wide-eyed look of surprise on his face. "Yeesh, yeah that would have been an embarrassing moment to have to explain, especially considering the fact that you and I are both straight, Baku-bro."

"Well a good thing that both of you guys got girls in your lives now," Mina remarked. Gesturing to all of her friends and classmates, the pink-skinned girl said, "Now come on, let's party! Bakugo's mom's eulogy did say that she wanted us to party and have a blast while celebrating how she lived, rather than mourn and be sad that she died. She was a woman of many awesome tastes, and I personally hope to emulate some of her awesomeness someday."

"Don't copy my mom in the least, Pinky," Bakugo said dryly, "The world already has had enough bullshit from her for one forever."

* * *

The day after the funeral service for Mitsuki, everyone who was named in her will had gathered in the office of the lawyer that was representing Mitsuki's final interests. As he was also the very same lawyer that worked for Mitsuki during her divorce from Masaru, things were indeed a bit awkward when the brown-haired man himself entered the office with Inko, Izuku and Bakugo. "Thank you all for coming here today," the lawyer said, "Now that everyone who had been named in the last will and testament of Mitsuki is here, we can proceed."

Everyone sat down in the chairs placed in front of the lawyer's desk. He cleared his throat before he began to read aloud from Mitsuki's will; Bakugo, given how his late mother had written up her own eulogy, was a bit worried about how the will would be written. But then again, the ashy-haired woman had apparently somehow got it into her head that her teenage son was gay, so who knew what manner if madness was written in her will?

"Yo peeps," the lawyer said as he read from the printed copy of Mitsuki's will that he had in his hands, "Mitsuki Bakugo here, and if this is being read aloud then that means the reaper had been hating on me." Bakguo let out a mildly irritated sigh, not believing that his own mother would have ever written anything like that. Regardless, he and everyone continued to push along as the lawyer continued his job of reading the late Mitsuki's will.

"I'm going to go on ahead and leave to my ex-husband Masaru everything that I got from him in the divorce," the lawyer read aloud, "That should cover among other things the house, the car, and the boy. I'm going to exclude what money I got from him, because I'm leaving what all money I had to Katsuki and Izuku, to be distributed between the two of them evenly. If the money can't be split exactly evenly, then the boys have to arm wrestle and the winner of best two out of three gets the odd bit of money out. If they can reach some manner of compromise outside of that, then that's fine too."

The lawyer paused in his reading from Mitsuki's will when he noticed that Izuku had raised a hand. "Umm, yeah, Kacchan can go ahead and have the difference if there is any," the green-eyed boy said nervously, "I really rather not have to arm wrestle him."

Nodding in an understanding manner, the lawyer said, "Very well, I'll make a note of that." Looking back down to the printed copy of Mitsuki's will, the lawyer continued to read aloud, "To my best bud Inko, I'm leaving what clothes of mine that I had. If she's still a little on the fat side at the time this will is read, then she'll have to work off what extra weight is necessary to fit. If there's any clothing she doesn't want, she can feel free to donate it to a thrift store. Inko, just make sure you check all the pockets first; I think I left my favorite pocket knife in one of the pockets of one of my pairs of pants."

Inko had a bit of a confused look on her face after she heard what all was being left to her by Mitsuki, possessions and instructions alike. She also blushed a little bit out of embarrassment due to Mitsuki, even beyond the grave, was reminding her to stick to her weight loss regimen. "As for what all randomness that isn't directly covered by the will, I'll leave that to Inko, Izuku, my ex and the boy to figure out amongst themselves," the lawyer said. Lowering his printed copy of Mitsuki's will, the lawyer said to all of them, "And that covers Mitsuki Bakugo's last will and testament. We should discuss the transference of notable property like her house and car, then move on to her cash assets."

Everyone who had inherited whatever from Mitsuki had a mixed selection of expressions after the lawyer had finished reading the will. He explained that he had to edit a few things to make reading it out loud a bit more palatable, but he left what all Mitsuki said about what she was leaving to who unchanged. After things had settled down, the lawyer proceeded to help Masaru and the boys go about how they would receive what all Mitsuki had left to the three of them. Bakguo was still a little annoyed that, on more than one occasion, he was referred to as 'the boy' by his late mother in her will.

Even dead, Mitsuki finds ways to piss Bakugo off, which is something that pisses Bakugo off to no foreseeable end.

* * *

That evening at the Bakguo house, after everything specified in Mitsuki's will had gone to who they had been left to, Inko and Izuku found themselves helping Masaru and Bakugo go over what all was in the house that had belonged to Mitsuki. One of the first things that Inko had checked was all of Mitsuki's clothes; even though the green-haired woman had lost a notable amount of her excess weight since she had started her diet, she still had a little bit of chub that would make fitting into what clothes of Mitsuki's she was interested in a bit tight.

Inko also found some of her old shirts in Mitsuki's closet, as well as an old, baggy All Might t-shirt that not only very clearly belonged to Izuku, but it was the very All Might t-shirt that Mitsuki had been provided to wear the night Izuku brought her to the apartment to take care of her after he found her drunk and crying on a bench. Inko decided to collect that All Might t-shirt, as well as what clothing Inko knew was hers before Mitsuki apparently borrowed them and never got the chance to return any of it.

Something else that was found was an old men's class ring, which Bakugo found while rooting around through one of the drawers in Mitsuki's computer desk; the explosive teen was able to identify it as the class ring his dad owned, and when showing it to Masaru, the brown-haired man said that it was indeed his, and had been wondering where it had gone off to all this time. Being a good son, Bakugo handed the class ring over to his dad.

It was Izuku who had the unfortunate bad luck to check the shed in the backyard, a shed that Bakugo confirmed hadn't been opened since sometime long before he first got into U.A., so it was well before the divorce of Mitsuki and Masaru. When Izuku opened it, he was hit with the horrific odor of rotting death, a smell that prompted him to run out and throw up in one of the corners of the backyard, getting the attention of the others.

It turned out that the smell was being produced by the remains of a dead cat (mostly skeletal at this point) and, once everyone took care of the smell issue as best as possible, Masaru went in with a rake and a snow shovel to remove the remains. Able to check the collar on the dead cat's neck, Masaru was able to confirm it was the long-missing cat of an elderly man who still lived in the neighborhood. The cat must have wandered into the backyard, was locked inside the shed, and was stuck like that until the end.

Masaru, deciding to take the responsibility, proceeded to inform the elderly neighbor about it.

After that messy business was settled, Inko got to the matter of what jewelry Mitsuki had left behind. Masaru was able to identify a ring that his mother had given to Mitsuki on the day that he married her, and had asked if he could take it. Inko agreed, and outside of that, it was agreed that all of the jewelry would be sold or otherwise given away. Inko had just finished putting all of the jewelry into plastic sandwich bags when she, Masaru and the boys all heard someone at the front door.

Izuku and Bakugo were the ones who answered it, and to their surprised it was a group that consisted of Bakugo's squad, as well as Pony, Kyoka and Kinoko. "Yo, man," Kaminari greeted when he and the others saw the explosive teen, "How are you and Izuku holding up?"

"We're just going over what all my mom had left behind that wasn't sorted to a specific person in her will," Bakugo explained dryly.

The boys in the group held up a few shopping bags that had grindage and sodas in them. "Well luckily for you and Izuku, the lads and I came prepared," Sero said, "We've brought a party pack along to have a blast while celebrating the life that was your mother."

As the boys were talking, the girls all turned to address Izuku. "I bet you're taking things a bit hard, Izuku," Mina said in a sympathetic manner, "I mean, your girlfriend did die on you. Will you be on the hunt for another girlfriend soon?"

Izuku gave a gentle shake of his head. "…I plan to take the rest of the current school year and at least half of summer break to mourn the loss of Mitsuki. But I will be ready to try again soon after that, probably around the time we all first get into class 2-A."

"Oh, speaking of being in our second year," Kyoka began, a look on interest on her face, "I got it that Aizawa-sensei will be our homeroom teacher for class 2-A as well. Apparently, he's going to be our homeroom teacher for all of the years we have with him. The class 2-A homeroom teacher this year will be the homeroom teacher for class 3-A next year, and the class 3-A homeroom teacher this year will take Aizawa-sensei's place as the class 1-A homeroom teacher next year. Principal Nezu explained the cycle to me when I asked him a bit about how classes in our second year would be done."

Izuku nodded to show that he understood the cycle that Kyoka was telling him, and Bakugo to a lesser extent, about. After that, the boys all turned to regard Izuku and the girls, having heard the talk about Aizawa. "Oh, something else about Aizawa-sensei that will be going down during our second year at U.A.," Kaminari began, "That's when his wedding to Ms. Joke will take place! It will be sometime before Halloween, according to Aizawa-sensei himself."

"Sekijiro-sensei and Hizashi-sensei already arguing between them who will be Aizawa-sensei best man," Pony remarked, "Aizawa-sensei say he plan to figure business out later."

Mina clapped excitedly a little bit as she hopped up and down. "Oh my goodness, this is so exciting!" the pink-skinned girl exclaimed, "There's going to be a wedding! And the man of the hour is going to be Aizawa-sensei, no less! Oh! You guys think that Eri will be a flower girl or something like that? Because that would be the absolute most adorable thing ever!"

"Tsuyu told me that Ms. Joke visited her family," Kyoka began to say, "Told them what was going on, and asked if she could have Samidare serve as the ring bearer. Mr. and Mrs. Asui, from what I gather, both thought that the idea was very adorable and agreed if Ms. Joke was able to clear it with her husband-to-be." Mina let out a very excited squeal that made it clear she found the idea of Tsuyu's little brother being the ring bearer to be just as adorable as flower girl Eri.

Clapping his hands together, Izuku got everyone to focus on him. Despite the tragic loss that he, Bakugo, Inko and Masaru had suffered recently, the green-eyed boy looked happy, as if the news of the wonder to come was cheering him up. "…I'm glad that things are starting to look a lot nicer now," Izuku said, "A lot happier now. This was just what I needed to lighten my mood a bit. Also, I just realized something."

Everyone watched as Izuku clutched the sides of his head, a look of panic on his face. "We're all going into our second year of U.A. soon!" Izuku exclaimed, "Oh man, what if second year makes first year look like a joke? What if there's major events happening on-"

Izuku was slapped out of what would have been one of his famous muttering tangent by Bakugo, whose actions got Izuku and everyone else to look at him. "…We all made it through first year no problem, Deku," Bakugo began, "Losing only Grape Head in the process, but then who the hell cares about Grape Head?" The explosive teen patted Izuku on the shoulder, gave him a wry smile. "Why are you worried about second year? If anything, second year ought to be worried about _us_, Deku. So don't sweat it. We got this."

Everyone nodded in agreement with what Bakugo had said, and Izuku, his worries eased, smiled in a bit of a relaxed manner. He nodded a few times before he remarked, "Thanks, Bakugo. Sorry if my freaking out just now came off as unnecessary."

"No need to panic about that, my good man," Kirishima said, "And if the deal wasn't sweet enough, our exams for the rest of the year had been canceled by Principal Nezu, who said that what all we had gotten caught up in starting with everything that occurred after the tournament we had against Vulcan had provided us all with ample practical experience." Throwing his arms up into the air, Kirishima said, "Now I don't have to worry about bombing math or science exams! I'm free!"

"Hooray!" Kaminari cheered, as the rest of Bakugo's squad all threw their arms up into the air in celebration. Kyoka and Pony looked at them all confused like, but Kinoko took the opportunity to throw her arms around Kirishima's chest while his arms were up so that she wouldn't have pinned them to his sides. The crimson-haired boy, seeing that his girlfriend was hugging him, gave off a gentle smile as he lowered his arms back down, his left one falling down over Kinoko.

Bakugo, knowing that his squad made up most of the dumbest students in class 1-A, could not help but let out some amused chuckling. Izuku made the mistake of mentioning that the extra time could be used to help figure things out for Aizawa in regards to his upcoming wedding to Ms. Joke, and the talk of the wedding got all of the girls excited. While the girls were going on a mild a minute, the boys all turned to look at Izuku.

All of them looked at Izuku with accusatory, dry looks. "…You have doomed us, Izuku," Sero said, "You have doomed us all."

* * *

The following day, Izuku was lying face-up on his bed in his dorm room over at Heights Alliance. He actually had to open up an account due to how much money he had received from Mitsuki in the will; as it turned out, all of Mitsuki's cash assets were able to be split between Izuku and Bakugo exactly evenly, so there was no need for the recommended arm wrestling contest in the first place. Izuku let out a sigh of relief at that, even though he said that Bakugo could have the difference if there was any.

At this point, there was only a little bit of time left in the current school year; there would be some end of the year shenanigans, then everyone would be off for summer break, then he and all of his classmates would return to U.A. High School as class 2-A. It was so long ago that Izuku was glad that he had made it into U.A.'s hero course at all; now he was going on further into the hero curriculum of Japan's top hero academy.

Graduation was going to be in a few days, meaning that all of the third years would go out into the world to pursue what paths awaited them. This meant that the Big Three, those being Mirio-sempai, Tamaki-sempai, and Nejire-sempai would all be gone from U.A., with Tamaki getting a sidekick job at Fat Gum's agency and Nejire getting a sidekick job at Ryukyu's agency; Mirio, from what Izuku had gathered, would be going to the police academy to become an officer, as he hadn't gotten his quirk yet due to Eri not being able to work her quirk to that point.

Izuku had been briefed by a gathering of students that were a mix of his classmates and some students from class 1-B that the combined fifty of them were going to get together to throw the Big Three a private celebratory party to congratulate them on graduating from U.A. It would be sad to see that the beloved sempais would no longer be there at U.A., but the Big Three will still be in touch with them. Uraraka, Tsuyu and Eunice would be seeing Nejire whenever there were internship rounds, and Kirishima, Tetsutetsu and Kinoko (she's now a constant) would be seeing Tamaki during those times as well.

Mirio said he would be by to help check on Eri whenever he had time off from the police academy. Given that he's one of her favorite persons now, the little horned girl was happy to hear that promise from the blonde, friendly buff boy. Izuku was there when Mirio made that promise to Eri, so he smiled as well. He was glad to have had the chance to meet a person as awesome as Mirio-sempai, and when Mirio mentioned his new goals of going to the police academy so he could still help the people of society, Izuku wished him the best of luck.

The Big Three all also said that they would attend the wedding of Aizawa-sensei and Ms. Joke that would be taking place next year, provided that they would be allowed to come. Aizawa said that he wouldn't object to it.

END, CHAPTER SEVENTY

Author's notes;

I know that the matter of a funeral and all of the business related to it is a bit of a sad affair, but I tried to show everyone being at peace, knowing that Mitsuki was at peace herself now, probably already going on epic adventures with Gilgamesh and Enkidu like she said she wanted. Aside from all of that, this is the final chapter of the 'Mitsuki arc'. The next arc, which will also be the final arc of the story, will be called the 'Time skip arc'.

Yes, there will be a time skip in this story, but it's not a really big one; just enough to get to the point where everyone is partly focused on the wedding between Aizawa and Ms. Joke, as it will be happening with a short amount of time by that point. So at most, a couple of months will be skipped to get to the point that has been specified. Also, yes, the wedding will be a major plot point of the final arc, as it is a wedding that joins two pro heroes; something like that is going to be the talk of the town, if not the whole nation.

It will also show everyone doing their part to help make things perfect. I'm aiming to try to end things on as heartwarming of a note as I can manage it, and yes, this will include Izuku finding a new love to have in his life.

…I'll give you two guesses who it's going to be, but you'll probably only need one.


	71. Chapter 71

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter seventy-one: Year two is a blast!

It's been a few months since the second year at U.A. High School began for the group of students that have long since become known as 'The Legendary Year'. There have been no major blips during that time, allowing those combined fifty students to enjoy having gone from class 1-A and 1-B to class 2-A and 2-B. They were just a little more experience now, after all of the collective chaos that occurred back then they all were first years; the fact that the biggest thing to happen in their second year thus far was a student protest in the cafeteria due to a hike in the prices for the food meant that they were very much enjoying a period of peace in their lives.

Something else that came with their second year was the fact that they kept Aizawa and Sekijiro as their homeroom teachers; the 2-A and 2-B homeroom teachers from the last school year were now 3-A and 3-B homeroom teachers, and the 3-A and 3-B homeroom teachers from last year cycled back to being 1-A and 1-B homeroom teachers. This is done so that a class can keep their homeroom teacher for all of their years at U.A.; it was Nezu's idea, as he felt the students would do better over the whole of their time ay U.A. if they stayed with a familiar face during all of said time at the school.

Izuku Midoriya and his classmates, now being 2-A, were in their homeroom class with Aizawa, going over a general subject as per usual during that time. As the underground hero was covering something he personally felt was of great importance, his class was interrupted when Hizashi came barging into the classroom. "Hey Aizawa, a lot of students from the gen ed courses are all protesting in the cafeteria again over the price hikes," Hizashi said in a mildly worried tone, "We need help in getting them to disperse."

"Well maybe Nezu shouldn't have decided to raise the prices of food in the cafeteria for what has to be an irrational reason," Aizawa muttered in an annoyed tone. Looking over his students, Aizawa said, "Can I count on all of you to behave yourselves until I get back?"

"There is no need for you to worry, Aizawa-sensei," Tenya declared as he stood up from his desk, "As class rep, I will personally see to it that-" The glasses-wearing boy was cut off when Aizawa turned and left with Hizashi, not saying a word. It was true that, just as he was when he and all of his classmates were in 1-A, Tenya had been elected to be the class rep for them in 2-A as well, partly because he actually knew how to run the role, but mostly because no one else wanted the job; Izuku, remembering the class rep elections from their first year, specifically asked that no one vote for him.

After the teachers were gone, class 2-A began to converse amongst themselves. "You know, I kind of agree with all of the students protesting the hike in the prices of food in the cafeteria," Yaoyorozu remarked, the hint of resignation in her tone making it clear that the past couple of months ever since she fell from upper-upper class to barely above lower class has had a great impact on her outlook on life; the formerly rich girl had been quite humbled. Letting out a bit of a troubled sigh, Yaoyorozu remarked, "Things are even tougher for me now, especially given that I can't eat as much as I used to, and that limits my quirk a bit."

"Oh yeah, your quirk uses lipids or whatever the fuck you call them to make stuff," Mina said, "And making stuff burns up what excess fat you have." Crossing her arms over her chest, the pink-skinned girl continued, "And that actually reminds me. Yaoyorozu, how come you never considered the idea of being a fat girl?"

Yaoyorozu and the other girls in 2-A all turned to look at Mina. "I…I beg your pardon?" asked the formerly rich girl, a look of confused shock and surprise on her face.

Gesturing to Yaoyorozu, Mina said, "Now here me out on this one. Your quirk basically takes your fat and turns it into stuff, like a metal rod or one of those Russian nesting dolls, right?" Yaoyorozu nodded a few times in the affirmative. "And yet I never see you bigger than the average for girls in our class," Mina went on, "Wouldn't it be useful to you for you to carry around a bit of extra weight at all times, that way if you use your quirk a lot in one go, you won't starve yourself like you did during the monster siege?"

"Oh yeah, Momo did get rather skinny due to overusing her quirk that time," Sero remarked in a tone of agreement when he and some of the other boys in class got in on the conversation.

Gesturing to Sakaki while keeping her eyes still on Yaoyorozu, the pink-skinned girl said, "Hell, imagine if you regularly kept yourself as big as Sakaki here. Having that much weight with the quirk that you have would make you fucking unstoppable."

"That would be going a bit overboard, Mina," Izuku spoke up, "But I can see the point that you're trying to make to Yaoyorozu." The ponytailed girl was about to speak up, but she was cut off when Aizawa walked back into the room, followed by Hizashi. The two teachers looked over all of the second year students before them, mildly troubled looks on their faces.

Aizawa inhaled through his nose before he spoke up. "…The rest of the period is free period," the underground hero announced, "Also, for the time being the rest of your classes today will also be free period due to how many teachers are needed to attend to the problem in the cafeteria. Chances are classes as a whole today may have to be canceled."

Some of the students in 2-A cheered excitedly, although the more responsible ones looked a bit confused, with Izuku, Tenya and Yaoyorozu in particular looking a bit alarmed. "Umm, sensei," Izuku began when he raised a hand, "What happened?"

"Chaos that he doesn't really need in his life, especially with his wedding to Emi coming up so soon," Hizashi replied, adding that last bit at the end with a bit of a mischievous look on his face, earning an annoyed growling scowl out of Aizawa in the process. The two U.A. teachers left to go back to attend to whatever chaos was going down in the cafeteria over the price hike in the food that's served there, with Aizawa grumbling over how all of this is Nezu's fault.

Although class 2-A was happy to have at least the rest of the current period off, potentially even the rest of the day, they were too excited to focus on all of that due to Hizashi reminding all of them about the fact that Aizawa was getting married to Emi, aka Ms. Joke, within the next few weeks or so. Talk of weddings, especially ones that involved at least one pro hero tying the knot, were always exciting and generated a lot of gossip. The part about the gossip is probably why, out of all of the class 2-A girls, Hagakure was the most excited.

She had a knack for getting the juiciest gossip, that invisible girl. One wonders what her secret is.

* * *

Later, it turned out that the students of U.A. really were given the rest of the day off due to the protests down in the student cafeteria, thus allowing class 2-A to do what all they felt like, within reason of course. Their rival class, 2-B, got the same idea, and as such they ended up running into one another on their way out of the main building for U.A. In terms of physical appearance, the only class 2-B student who had changed in the few months since everyone got into second year was Kinoko Komori, who was now slightly skinnier and her hair was longer but still in that bob-cut style.

Pointing dramatically at class 2-A, Monoma said, "I bet you sorry 2-A lot plan to find some of the new first years here at U.A. and screw with them, aren't you?"

"It's just me and Hatsume, and Setsuna is going to join us," Mina replied, drawing agreeing nods out of the other two girls that she listed by name.

Monoma looked like he was about to go on a tangent, but he was stopped by a collection of slaps to the back of his head, as well as a few to his back. The collection of slaps knocked the blonde hysteric holler monkey of class 2-B over and onto the floor, and in the wake of his fall, the girls of class 2-B who had boyfriends in 2-A rushed over to said boyfriends, happy to see them sooner than they had expected that day. Similarly, guys in 2-B who had friends in 2-A went over to said friends to shoot the breeze.

"Mark my words, dudes," Juzo remarked as he talked to Izuku and Shinso, "Those protests will not stop until the protesters win. There are many who were already in U.A. that can't afford the price hike, and many more who had come into U.A. this year that can't pay it either. The problems plaguing the Japanese economy since we took down Yaoyorozu's father during our first year still persist up to this day."

Both 2-A boys nodded in agreement with their friend in 2-B. "Yeah, a lot of us have to resort to sneaking food from off-campus onto campus so that we can get something to eat," Shinso remarked, "Only the really wealthy members of the student body such as Tenya, Todoroki and Uraraka can afford the price hike."

To the piqued interest of Izuku and Shinso, Juzo started to laugh. "Hoo boy," the softening quirk user of class 2-B remarked after letting out a laugh, "I never thought that I'd see the day where your gravity classmate, who was so poor that it was legendary, is now one of the wealthiest students at U.A."

"Well her father's construction company has done loads better ever since we did that commercial for the place back in our first year," Izuku pointed out, "And it got even more clients, and thus more revenue, when Ryoga's monopoly was busted by the government during the process of seizing all of his assets following his defeat and arrest. It's due to the downfall of Ryoga, as well as the popularity of Mr. Uraraka's business thanks to that commercial, that he and Uraraka now have more income than they ever dreamed of seeing."

"We're also looking into doing a second commercial for Uraraka Construction," Shinso added, "This one being updated to account for things such as recent times and whatnot. Hey Juzo, you think you'd be interested in taking part in the second commercial?"

Tapping his right fist into the palm of his left hand, Juzo said, "Oh hells yeah! I bet the whole of my class would love to take part!"

Both Izuku and Shinso nodded in acknowledgement, with Izuku saying, "Yeah, we already went over it with our class, and the only ones we had to get up to speed on it are Habuko, Sakaki, Eunice and Nezuko. Shinso and Hatsume helped with the first commercial to an extent, so they both already know what to do." Juzo saw the point that Izuku was making, and remarked that Akuma, Artemis, Kurama, Omono and Tsukasa should be caught up as well.

After clapping his hands together, Juzo remarked, "You know, it's kind of weird. Uraraka and Yaoyorozu were poor and wealthy respectively this time last year, but now they switched spots."

"And Mina chuckles every time it's mentioned," Izuku remarked dryly, his expression matching the tone of his voice.

"Midoriya and I were planning to check a few places off campus, given that school was let out early today," Shinso remarked, "Want to join us?" Juzo gave his friends a thumbs-up, telling them that all he needed was to go change into a casual outfit first, as he didn't want to walk around in public in his U.A. uniform. Izuku and Shinso both wanted to change into their casual outfits as well, with Juzo leaving Izuku with a teasing remark about wearing the t-shirt that quite literally says 't-shirt' on the front.

Izuku still has that shirt, just so you know.

* * *

While some of the boys were away off campus, the girls got down to some serious business over at the girls-only dorm building that was established for them during the previous school year. Given that Nejire had graduated, her role of 'dorm big sis' ended up being left to Itsuka; Nejire originally wanted to give the role to either Mina or Setsuna or Hatsume on the basis that 'those three are the most fun', but the rest of the girls thankfully decided to hold some manner of election to determine the new 'dorm big sis', and Itsuka ended up winning. It helped that she took to the role like a duck takes to water.

Clapping her hands together, Itsuka said, "Alright, ladies, we're here to discuss something very important that's on the table right now."

"Exactly," Yaoyorozu said, "What are we going to do about the price hike for the food in the cafeteria? There's no way most of us can afford that, myself especially."

"Wait, I thought we were talking about the sheer adorableness of how, when we met up with 2-A after classes for the rest of the day were canceled, we saw Kinoko's boyfriend hook his hands under her armpits so he could lift her up as high as he could," Setsuna remarked, "I even got a pic of it on my smartphone." Kinoko blushed a bit upon hearing that her classmate got a picture of her (Kinoko) being lifted up by Kirishima.

Itsuka had to clap her hands again to get everyone to quiet down. "No, we're here to discuss a matter of greater importance," the class 2-B rep (yes, she reps her class for year two as well) said as she looked at all of her fellow girls. Smacking the back of her right hand into the palm of her left, Itsuka said, "Aizawa-sensei is getting married to Ms. Joke in a few weeks."

"Oh yeah!" Yui said, a lit up expression on her face, "There's a wedding coming up! Oh, this is so exciting!" Yui and some of the other girls, 2-B and 2-A alike, cheered excitedly as the idea of a wedding taking place got them all hyped up.

Once more, Itsuka had to clap her hands to get everyone to calm down. "Girls, this is no ordinary wedding. You forget that not only are Aizawa-sensei and Ms. Joke pro heroes, but so are a good number of the people expected to be attending the wedding. There's also the fact that there's a very strong possibility that a good number of us from the classes will get to go as well." Pointing dramatically over all of her fellow girls, Itsuka said, "That being said, we need to do our part to make sure things go as perfectly as possible! This is a wedding we're talking about here, people! It only happens once in a person's life!"

Some of the girls gave the dorm building's 'big sis' wry looks, with Uraraka asking, "Are you sure about that, Itsuka?"

Realizing what she had just said, Itsuka quickly added, "It happens only once in a person's life if everything goes well." After looking over all of the girls that were with her, Itsuka asked if there was anything that they should discuss in regards to the upcoming wedding between Aizawa and his soon-to-be wife Emi.

Mina suggested getting Sato to bake the wedding cake, citing that he's actually made cakes for weddings before, his pastry skills proving he can compete with the best of them when it comes to making wedding-quality cakes. The teachers, knowing them, might find some enjoyment in the students being involved, and agreed to add it to the list of things to bring up to Aizawa-sensei when he, as well as Hizashi-sensei and Sekijiro-sensei, are done looking into what all chaos was going on over at the school cafeteria.

* * *

Izuku, Shinso and Juzo had a good time hanging out and being bros as they took care of their business off campus. However, nothing could prepare them for the chaos that they all saw upon their return to U.A.; a good sized fire had engulfed the one part of the building that Izuku was able to tell was where the cafeteria was located. Getting back onto campus, the three boys later got it from Nemuri-sensei that when the teachers (herself being one of said teachers) tried to get the protesting students to disperse, some physical resistance broke out.

Long story short, a large portion of the cafeteria was damaged to the point it was off-limits until repairs were completed. Additionally, at least six dozen students, mostly first years from the various courses, were hospitalized for varying injuries, along with Snipe, Ectoplasm and Hound Dog. Sekijiro was also hurt, but he was released within short order as all he needed was a white cloth patch to wear over his left eye, which he luckily didn't lose. Aside from injuries, there were four dozen students punished in varying ways, with two third year gen ed course students even being expelled and arrested for assault.

"Of course," Nemuri said in a bemused tone as she shrugged, "This never would have happened if Nezu didn't decide to up the prices of the food sold at the cafeteria. It's not like there was any reasonable or excusable need to do that, so I fail to understand why he felt the need to raise the prices of the food to the point that most have trouble affording being able to eat." The eighteen-only hero crossed her arms over her chest, gave a gentle shake of her head. "…But enough on all of that business. What were you boys up to?"

Patting Izuku on the back, Juzo explained, "Oh, me and Shinso's buddy Izuku here had asked us for some advice on how to ask out a girl in our year that he has his eyes on. He got over what happened to his last girlfriend a while ago, and now he feels that he's ready to get back out there and try to find a new someone to have in his life." Izuku, with a bit of an embarrassed smile on his face, nodded in confirmation to what the softening quirk boy said.

Nemuri gave a gentle, sympathetic smile as she regarded the green-eyed boy; she knew full well about Izuku's first relationship, which was with the late Mitsuki Bakugo. The first reaction that Nemuri had upon hearing of the relationship was ask why she couldn't have a boyfriend that young if Mitsuki was able to get away with it. As a matter of fact, Nemuri was half-tempted to subtly suggest that she was single and ready to mingle, but she didn't act on that, partly because as a teacher she'd be frowned upon if she solicited a student, but mostly because it had been said that Izuku already had his eye on a girl.

And it's a girl in Izuku's year in the hero course, so it was either one of the 2-A girls or one of the 2-B girls.

The eighteen-only hero gave a respectful nod as she addressed Izuku. "Well I'm glad to see that your heart has recovered from the terrible loss that you suffered a while ago, Izuku. I'm still very sorry that you had to go through that, and I hope it never happens to you again, as well as hoping something similar never happens to anyone else."

Izuku flashed an appreciative smile as he nodded once. "…Thank you, Nemuri-sensei. That really means a lot to-"

*CRASH*

"MY LEG!"

Izuku was cut off by all of the noise that occurred, and he plus everyone there all turned around quickly to see that a small riot had broken out on U.A. grounds, consisting mostly of students of the school still protesting. Now, in addition to protesting the price hike for the food in the cafeteria, the U.A. students were also protesting all of the punishments that were handed out to previous protestors that were dealt with.

Sighing as she looked over to what all was going on, Nemuri muttered to herself, "This is all on you, Nezu." Turning back to face Izuku, Shinso and Juzo, the eighteen-only hero said in a sorry tone, "Boys, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to leave you here. I'm needed to go help the other teachers get the new protesting students to calm back down." Without another word, Nemuri ran off to assist in the efforts of the U.A. teachers to quell the protesting.

The three boys simply looked on dryly as they watched so many U.A. teachers try to get all of the protesting students to calm down. "…I would very much like to know what Principal Nezu was thinking when he decided that raising the cost of the food in the cafeteria was a good idea," Shinso remarked.

* * *

That evening in the dorm building for the 2-A boys (yes, they had to move out of Heights Alliance as it's for class 1-A boys now), Izuku and his classmates were relaxing. Some were doing homework, others who had done all homework were sitting in the main area watching the TV, and a few such as Shinso decided to go right up to their dorm rooms so that they could go to bed, as they felt as if they had dealt with enough bullshit for today.

Strangely enough, the TV was turned to the local news, and there was a news story going on concerning U.A. "More now on the string of student protests coming out of U.A. High School, the top hero academy in Japan," the news anchor lady said, "We've just gotten word that a _second_ student protest had broken out over how students from the first wave of protesting had been punished, in addition to the original cause of the first protest. We go live to the gates of U.A. High School, where an on-scene reporter is talking to Nezu, the principal of U.A."

The news then cut to a live interview outside of the front gates of U.A., where all of the 2-A boys could see the quirked animal principal. "It is very unfortunate that we had to take such drastic steps in disciplining the students, especially since they had a lot of reasons to be as upset as they were. But that doesn't change the fact that some students had crossed the line, so we had to make a lot of hard choices." Not that Nezu saw it, but a trio of people hiding in a bush had evidently pulled their pants and underwear down and stuck their butts out of the bush while the interview was going on; that little bit would not be talked about until talk of it hit local media sites the following morning.

The 2-A boys all saw the scene instantly, and Kaminari was even able to pull up a video clip of it later to show to Shinso, who had already gone to bed by that point. That bit from the live on-sight interview with Nezu outside of the front gates of U.A. was the talk of the dorm building for the rest of the night, as well as the talk of the school the following morning. Nezu, when he had learned of what transpired in the background during his interview, merely sighed in a resigned tone, figuring that this was yet another form of protest from all of the students who were all up in arms over what was going on as of late. He just wished he could find out which boys had the gall to moon the news reporter, getting their butts on the news as a result.

END, CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

Author's notes;

I tried to go for as much of a lighthearted/funny chapter to try and set the mood for the rest of this arc, which is also the rest of this story as a whole. All of the bad stuff is behind them, so now the heroes are free to actually live. Those who are _not_ free, however, have to deal with the ins and outs of the Japanese prison system. Not that such business in unpleasant; in fact, some of the prisoners of a certain prison are still finding ways to have the usual level of shenanigans that they enjoy getting up to.

Yep, the next chapter is going to be seeing Dabi, Spinner, Toga, Skeptic and Mr. Compress having prison adventures; Kurogiri was moved back to Tartarus due to his nomu nature, and since that villains prison is fully loaded now, the other five were all fitted with quirk suppressing cuffs and sent to a regular prison. They're still going to be having the dankest of adventures nonetheless, and there will even be a new friend who will be joining their circle of shenanigans (first person who leaves a signed comment that correctly guesses who the new friend will be gets a shout out in chapter seventy-two). Also, Toga becomes a prison boss. Yes, I said Toga.

...By the way, I'm not sure how many of you would actually be interested in this, but I'm currently brainstorming an idea for an AU story where Mitsuki survives her Breast Cancer. I can't promise that the AU story will be lengthy (at most, it will have nine chapters), but it will explore what things would have turned out like if that experimental medicine that Recovery Girl had given to Mitsuki to take had actually worked as it was supposed to. I'm still trying to come up with an official title for the AU story, and I don't know right now exactly what kind of genre that the AU story will have, although I think that romance/drama is a strong contender right now.


	72. Chapter 72

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter seventy-two: Inferior Toilet Wine

Toga was sitting on a bed in a jail cell in the local prison, wearing an orange long-sleeved prisoner's outfit. She was drinking from a clear plastic bag with a straw, sipping as she hummed along while drinking. After drinking a fair bit, she let out a bit of a giggle as she looked at the man standing in front of her in the prison cell, a balding quirkless man in his early to mid-fifties, who was in for some sort of white collar crime.

Giving the older prisoner a serious look, Toga said, "Yoshi, if you ever bring me inferior toilet wine again, then I'll be forced to shank you in the showers. And you know I don't want to do that, alright buddy?" As the middle-aged prisoner scurried away hunched up out of fear over the much younger female prisoner, Toga called out to him as he left, "I like being a cool boss." Yoshi ran past Dabi and Spinner, who both walked into Toga's cell, past a white-haired man with a moustache who looks to be in his thirties.

As Toga took another sip from her inferior toilet wine, Spinner gestured to her. "How in blazes did you get to be the prison boss?"

"How come you were allowed to keep your mask?" Toga retorted dryly, pointing out that the lizardman villain was still wearing his mask that he always wore.

Dabi let out a resigned sigh as he got both of his friends to stop before things started. "Look, let's just try not to make too big of a stink while the three of us are here, alright? At least we've been allowed some degree of freedom. Tartarus would have had us all wrapped up in crazy people jackets and thrown into a cell." The blue-flame villain had a point; due to how Tartarus Prison was pretty much at max capacity, all they could take from the six villains who turned themselves in after Samidare Asui's belayed birthday party was Kurogiri, and that was only because of his greater nomu status.

Dabi, Spinner and Toga, as well as Mr. Compress and Skeptic, were all fitted with quirk-suppressing cuffs and thrown into a regular prison, the kind that had quirkless convicts, as well as quirked convicts that were not considered dangerous enough for Tartarus Prison. But due to the aforementioned overcrowding problem in Tartarus, more and more quirked villains are fitted with the quirk-suppressing cuffs and thrown into the regular prison. Thus Dabi, Spinner, Toga, Skeptic and Mr. Compress find themselves in their current situation.

…Where Toga somehow became a prison boss, apparently.

As the conversation between the three villain friends went on, Dabi pointed to the white-haired man with a moustache standing guard outside of Toga's cell; he was a prisoner too, but seemed to be filling the role of one of Prison Boss Toga's men. "Can you at least explain to Spinner and me who that guy out there is?" asked Dabi.

Turning to look to see who Dabi was pointing to, Toga's face lit up a bit. "Oh, you mean Danjuro?" Toga turned back to face Dabi and Spinner, took another sip of her inferior toilet wine, then said, "Oh yeah, he's one of the guys in my prison crew. He's the guy who makes sure no one funny enters. I already told him that you two, as well as Mr. Compress and Skeptic, are alright." Turning to look where Danjuro was standing, Toga called out, "Hey Dan-chan, come on in and introduce yourself!"

Understanding that his prison boss had called for him, Danjuro proceeded to enter the cell. Giving Dabi and Spinner a gentlemanly bow, the white-haired man said, "A pleasure to meet the acquaintance of two of Boss Toga's close associates. The name is Danjuro Tobita, but I also go by the alias of Gentle Criminal."

"Hey, I think I heard of you," Spinner said as he pointed to Danjuro, a mild look of suspicion on his face, "Yeah, you were that dandy villain guy with the HeroTube account you posted videos of the crimes you committed on."

"I think he is at least as much of a dandy as Mr. Compress," Dabi remarked, prompting both himself and Spinner to snicker a bit.

Toga wore a bit of a pouting expression as she regarded her friends. "Oh come on, guys, be nice to Danjuro. He's actually pretty good, especially since his last fight before he was finally caught by the pro heroes saw him fight my Izu-kun to a standstill." At the mention of Danjuro actually fighting the protégé of All Might to a standstill, both Dabi and Spinner looked interested.

The two male villains turned to look at Danjuro, with Dabi saying, "Did you really fight that green-eyed puppy in human form to a standstill?"

"My loyal follower and close friend on the outside, La Brava, did help me in the endeavor," Danjuro admitted, "But all she was able to do was use her quirk to boost my power temporarily. Aside from that, yes, I did indeed covered all of the fighting against Izuku Midoriya myself."

Dabi and Spinner turned to face one another, looking at each other with serious looks; even with the bit about a little outside help, the fact that Danjuro fought someone like Izuku and could keep up with him was pretty interesting, especially considering that by the looks of the man, Danjuro must be roughly double Izuku's age. That spoke a lot of the web video villain's skills, at least as far as Dabi and Spinner were concerned.

The two guys turned to look back at Toga, with Spinner remarking, "If he can keep up with one who Stain vouched for, then he'll be someone that we'll want to keep around." Jerking a thumb over his right shoulder, Spinner said, "Anyway, come on. We were sent to get you because we got rehearsal for the latest play that was written by the prison warden."

"Can't," Toga replied as she held up her drink, "I still have to finish my inferior toilet wine here." Jerking her head to gesture to Danjuro, the psychotic school continued, "But you can take Danjuro here with you." Toga then took another sip of her drink as Dabi and Spinner, both of them shrugging as they looked at one another, decided to just roll with it. Dabi gestured with his right index finger for Danjuro to follow him and Spinner.

Curious as to what manner of play was set for the prisoners to perform, Danjuro proceeded to follow Dabi and Spinner, as per Toga's suggestion. Never let it be said that Gentle Criminal does not obey the word of his Prison Boss.

* * *

Dabi, Spinner, Danjuro, Mr. Compress and Skeptic, plus a few random prisoners, found themselves on a stage in a theater that resembled a cheap drama theater found at some public high schools. A few guards were nearby to prevent acting up amongst the prisoners, and the warden himself was supervising things. The warden was an older man in his early sixties; he had thin graying hair, and had a bit of a paunch. Height wise, he was about as tall as Dabi, maybe an inch or so less.

"This latest play is a high school romance story with hints of humor," the warden said, "The main character is a somewhat poor girl who finds that she had somehow stolen the heart of a boy who is the richest student at their school. Through her time with him, the poor girl learns that he has some trauma from his past, and she does what she can to help him heal."

"Is this like the one play where a hot-tempered ace boy falls for an awkward foreign girl?" Dabi asked as he raised a hand.

"Or the one where some shy nerdy girl falls for a friendly but mildly dim-witted jock in her rival class?" Spinner said, a confused look on his face.

"Or the one where a girl in a high school rock band realizes she's in love with some idiot guy in her class?" Danjuro asked.

"Or the one where the smart class rep boy falls for the quirky charms of an autistic girl at his school?" Skeptic inquired as the prisoners were going on.

"How about the one where a poor girl turned rich girl finally gets the boy she's always been in love with to be her boyfriend?" Mr. Compress asked as he raised his one arm; they confiscated his prosthetic arm before sending him to prison with the others.

The warden got all of the prisoners to stop pestering him with questions by waiving his hands around quickly. After letting out a sigh, the warden said, "No, it's not like any of them. It's a new and original play written by yours truly." The warden then scanned his gaze over the crowd of prisoners. "…Where the hell is Toga?" the warden half asked half demanded, "I need her to play the poor girl who gets a rich but mildly emotionally traumatized boyfriend."

Holding up one of his hands, Spinner said, "Toga wasn't feeling well, so she's laying down for a bit. Dabi and I were able to bring Danjuro, though."

The warden let out a resigned, mildly annoyed sigh. "She's an essential actor for this play, as she's the only female prisoner here at the prison." Looking up from a copy of his script that he held to Danjuro, the warden said, "Tobita, you read the lines for the poor girl so that Dabi, who will play the rich boyfriend, will have someone to work off of as he tries to get the lines just right." Danjuro nodded in understanding and proceeded to flip through his copy of the script that he got, while Dabi looked over the lines for his character in the play.

* * *

Later that day at the prison during lunch, Dabi and Spinner found a table and sat down at it. They were soon joined by Mr. Compress, Skeptic and Danjuro, the last of those three helping the first carry his lunch tray; having only one arm made things a bit tough for Mr. Compress, and he would strangle Overhaul with the man's own lower intestines if he could for putting such a trial onto his life. Seriously, fuck Overhaul. Fuck him right in the ear, especially for all of the bullshit that he decided to put Eri through, because Overhaul is a little bitch.

…Where was I again? Oh yeah, Dabi and the others all sitting together for lunch at prison. "Is Toga still out?" Mr. Compress asked in a mildly concerned tone as he and the others ate. It was good luck to him that the dapperly dressed villain (he even made wearing a prison jumpsuit look dapper) had foods he could easily eat by just grabbing it with one hand and bringing it to his mouth, which was exposed since they also took his mask. After chewing and swallowing a bite that he took, Mr. Compress remarked, "Will she be okay?"

"Boss Toga tends to lay down for a bit after she has inferior toilet wine," Danjuro explained, "It's part of why she tends to threaten the peons who bring it to her into getting her toilet wine of a higher quality. But that's just a minor thing we shouldn't worry about." Danjuro leaned forward a bit, resting his elbows on the table and his chin on his fingers, which were locked into each other. "The prison play we're practicing for is this Friday, and I heard on the grapevine that the prison warden will be having a special guest watch with him."

"Oh?" Skeptic remarked, a hint of piqued interest in his tone, "A special guest, you say?"

Danjuro nodded a few times in confirmation. "…Believe it or not, the prison warden will be having the pro hero Endeavor show up to watch the play. Apparently, it won't be the first time that Endeavor's been invited to a prison to watch a play that the prisoners are performing."

Dabi leaned back in his seat at the table a bit, letting out an annoyed huff. "Well shit, my least favorite person in the history of forever is coming. I bet he'll gloat that I'm in prison when he sees me on stage, that fake-tanned juiced-up sack of shit." The blue-flame villain let out a sigh, gently shook his head. "…No, no I just have to accept things. The guys here, Toga and me all decided to bear with it, as well as Kurogiri who was taken to Tartarus."

A wry eyebrow was raised on the face of Gentle Criminal. Curious, he turned his attention over to Dabi. "…Ah yes, I believe that Boss Toga mentioned something about a young boy who she came to view as a friend?"

"It was Toga, Spinner and myself, yes," Dabi replied, "And we were joined by Mr. Compress, Skeptic and Kurogiri when the combined six of us decided to turn ourselves in after we had taken care of all final issues of business that we all had." Both Mr. Compress and Skeptic nodded in confirmation

"This boy…" Danjuro began, "…I believe that Boss Toga said that his name's Samidare…is he really that important?"

The other villains at the table all turned to regard Danjuro. "…Would you be surprised if we all told you that we did indeed decide to turn ourselves in for Samidare's sake?" Spinner asked, "That we all willingly surrendered to the police and pro heroes because we were all genuinely touched by the fact he and his little sister thought the world of us?"

Danjuro held up both hands in a gesture to show that he wasn't trying to argue. "By no means do I mean offence to your reasons, gentlemen. I myself have someone that I care for to such an extent, having downplayed all of her actions and involvement so that she wouldn't have suffered the same fate that I did when I ultimately lost to Izuku Midoriya on that day." The gentlemanly villain offered a hum that sounded to be part-chuckle. "…It's funny, how the platonic love that one has for another can inspire them to do all manner of things."

Danjuro then held his drink up to make a toast to the bonds that are between them, the villains, and those who they care for on the outside. The other four guys, all impressed by Danjuro's character, all joined the toast. They knew it that Danjuro would be a keeper, and were amused that it was Toga, of all people, who had found him and sub sequentially brought him into their circle.

Speaking of Toga…

* * *

After they had finished lunch, Dabi and the others decided to go check on Toga in her cell. When they got there, they found Toga awake, but she was standing while swaying a bit, a blushing on her face suggesting that she was a bit out of it. "Whosa…wasa…why is my bag of funny juice all empty?" Toga said as she looked at Dabi and the others.

A look of mild horror crossed Danjuro's face. "Oh no, Boss Toga is drunk! And it's not just any regular old kind of drunk, it's inferior toilet wine drunk!"

"Dabi, we need to bail until Toga sobers up," Spinner said, a hint of panic in his tone.

"Agreed," Dabi replied right away as he and Spinner turned around in unison and proceeded to leave Toga's prison cell. However, both men stopped in feared alarm when something whizzed past them between their heads, while Skeptic said something about how in blazes did Toga get ahold of a shank.

Dabi and Spinner, both with alarmed expressions, turned around to face Toga, who was looking at them with a mildly annoyed hint in her drunken expression. "You…you…you better not leave until I know what happened to all of my funny juice," the drunken psychotic schoolgirl said, barely able to avoid slurring her words.

The two guys who had known Toga the longest both began to panic, but then all thoughts on that matter were cut off when a random prisoner somewhere in the distance yelled, "Alright, I got a shank!" Then the sounds of someone crying out in pain could be heard. A few seconds later, all of the prisoners in that block began to riot, prompting Dabi and the others to all turn around to see what in the hell was going on.

"Boss Toga, perhaps you may want to lie down?" Danjuro said, his tone somewhat timid, as he gently approached Toga, only for her to let out a loud, drunken belch before she ran up to Danjuro and shoulder-rammed him, throwing him back into Spinner who, due to the force of being hit like that, was thrown back himself. The lizardman villain ended up stumbling back into another prisoner who was running past him at the moment, and that prisoner was pushed back off of the walkway that was outside of Toga's prison cell.

Said walkway just so happened to be at least three stories up above the ground, so that prisoner that Spinner was unintentionally thrown into ended up falling for a fair bit. Some prisoners let out surprised yelps when some guy fell a few floors and landed with a sickening splat that had the clear result of the falling man's death, but that wasn't enough to distract any of them from the full-blown prison riot that was going on. Dabi and the other guys, joined by Danjuro when he had finally gotten Toga to lay down on her bed in the prison cell, looked down to where the prisoner who fell to his death laid.

Dabi and Spinner both sucked in cringing breaths through their teeth as they saw what had happened. "Ooh yeah, that's not going to be something that he can walk away from," Dabi remarked as he pointed down to the dead prisoner, prompting Spinner and the other guys to all nod in agreement.

* * *

The following morning, Dabi and the others were all back to rehearsing for the prison play that the warden was going to have all of them perform. Toga had long since sobered up, so she joined all of the guys. As the prisoners all stood around, the prison warden stood before them, with guards posted to make sure the villains didn't try any funny business. The prison warden looked at all of the prisoners who were there for rehearsal before letting out a tired, resigned sigh.

"…The riot yesterday, although the single largest one in this prison's history, was quelled relatively quickly," the warden began, "However, Yoshi Moto was taken to the hospital to be treated for shanking injuries, although he is expected to make it. Additionally, Hayate Homonda and Shinji Tayamata were killed in the fighting of the riot, and Ryoga Yaoyorozu died when he fell multiple floors from one of the walkways. We suspect that he was pushed somehow."

The prisoners all looked around at one another, wondering just who it could have been that started the riot that took place yesterday. Toga was a bit sad to hear that the guy who makes her toilet wine was being treated for shanking injuries at the hospital and hoped he would recover soon, while Dabi and Spinner looked to one another, the latter having a mildly nervous look on his face that no one else caught. Even so, the prison warden had all of the prisoners go over their lines for the play

Now that Toga was recovered, she could do the lines for the poor girl character in the play.

* * *

That Friday evening, the play was ready to go. Dabi, as he and the others in what had become his circle of friends in the prison (everyone who was arrested with him, minus Kurogiri who was taken to Tartarus, and plus Danjuro who they all met at the regular prison) waited behind the drawn curtains, peeked out to look out onto the audience. Right away, the blue-blame villain spotted the prison warden. It was rather easy to find the guy, as he was seated next to Endeavor.

Dabi scoffed in an annoyed tone as he pulled his head back and looked over all of his friends. "Yeah, that flaming sack of shit is here," Dabi scowled, "Just as the warden said he'd be."

"I take it you aren't the biggest Endeavor fan in the world?" Danjuro asked as he gestured to the blue flame villain.

Dabi, along with the others in their circle, all nodded in confirmation. "Yeah, I have some personal hang-ups when it comes to that sorry son of a bitch," Dabi explained, "Also, that cool kid that the rest of us here befriended, Samidare, is flat out terrified of Endeavor. He curls up out of panic just by hearing Endeavor's name spoken aloud, so you have to refer to Endeavor as 'Scary Fire Beard' if you want to talk about him while Samidare is right there in front of you."

Danjuro wore a look of consideration on his face as he contemplated what all he was told by Dabi. The gentlemanly villain nodded a few times in understanding once he got everything. "I can see where all of that would make sense. I mean if I was-"

"Places, people!" one of the guards helping to run the play called out, "The curtain is going to open in ten seconds!" Hurrying, all of the prisoners took their places so that they could go out and perform their lines when it was time for them to do so.

After a few more seconds, the curtains opened, and the first thing the audience saw was Toga and Danjuro talking to one another. Toga let out a sigh as she said, "My family had to give up food for the next week because we really had to pay the power bill."

"Oh my, that certainly does not sound good at all, Milly," Danjuro remarked, sounding very much concerned.

Toga was about to say something else, but she stopped when Dabi walked onto the scene, looking like he was nervous (or at least pretending to be, given that he had to act out a role in the prison play). "Umm, excuse me, umm, Milly," Dabi said, pretending to be a stuttering fool who had been lovestruck, "Umm, if I could have a moment of your time, there is something that I have been meaning to tell you…"

* * *

The following morning, Dabi and the others in his circle were in a prison visit lobby, given that all of them were receiving visitors. Danjuro was off to the side, as he was being visited by La Brava. As for Dabi and the others, they all were being visited by Beru Asui and all three of her children; yes, even Tsuyu was there, helping her mother to keep an eye on things when it came to Samidare and Satsuki, who were both happy to see their friends.

"How long are all of you grounded for again?" Satsuki asked as she looked at all five of the villains at the table that everyone sat at.

Some of the guys couldn't help but chuckle at how the young frog-like girl had put the fact that they were all serving time in prison. "We're…all grounded for at least fifteen years," Spinner said as he began to explain things, "It would have been more, but we were able to get a deal due to a mix of willingly turning ourselves in and supplying information that helped the government deal with seizing everything from the Yaoyorozu Conglomerate."

"Speaking of Momo's dad," Tsuyu cut in, "I heard that he died in prison a few days ago kero."

Waiving a dismissive hand, Toga said, "Pfft, it must have been during the riot. The guy that I'm really worried about is Yoshi Moto, who I heard is still recovering due to injuries he sustained during the riot." Looking to Satsuki and Samidare, Toga said, "So kids, are you two both staying on your best behavior? You don't want to end up grounded for fifteen years like me and the boys here, do you?"

Satsuki quickly shook her head in the negative. "Oh no, I'm always on my best behavior! Big brother is too, because neither of us want to be grounded!" Samidare nodded briskly to show that he was in agreement with his little sister. Beru couldn't help but let out a giggle to show that she was amused by her youngest children being so worried about getting into big trouble.

The villains all let out relieved sighs. "…Yeah, kiddos, take it from us," Dabi said, "Prison is no picnic. It's like, the ultimate in punishments, far worse than what your parents can do given what they have. It's not a place any kid wants to end up, believe you me."

Satsuki nodded briskly to show that she was going to do as her older friends who are in prison say. Samidare, also nodding, reached into a pocket on his pants, pulled something out revealing it to be a folded up sheet of paper, unfolded it, and slid it over to Spinner, saying, "Thank you for the sword on my birthday." Spinner, curious, picked up the paper that Samidare slid over to him; it was a picture of all six of the villains who turned themselves in during Samidare's birthday party, with Samidare in the middle while holding Spinner's hand. Ryukyu, in her dragon form, was in the background. Also, Samidare was holding the katana that Spinner gave him back during the party in his free hand.

"Aww," Toga gushed in a touched tone, "That is so sweet!" Spinner, surprised to find himself as touched as he was, nodded gently in agreement before thanking Samidare for the drawing, folding it back up and slipping it into a pocket on his prison jumpsuit. That drawing would go on to be one of Spinner's few, if not his only, treasured possessions while he was in prison.

END, CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

Author's notes;

I had another scene in mind for this chapter, but by the time I got to the opening night for the prison play, I noticed that the chapter was dragging on for a bit longer than I would have liked for it to do, so I had to cut the scene that I had in mind. I do plan to put that scene in a later chapter, because I really like references, so don't worry if you all didn't like how I had to cut the scene for now in order to save a bit of time.

Anyway, the next chapter will show Izuku, who has been ready to try love again, attempt to hook up with a girl that he has his eyes on. Also, during that time, the green-haired cinnamon roll will come to a certain realization, realizing that a point that someone had made was spot-on.


	73. Chapter 73

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter seventy-three: Green Tea

Aizawa and his fiancé Emi were standing in the kitchen area of the dorm building for the boys of class 2-A, the boys who last year were class 1-A boys in what had been dubbed as the 'legendary year'. Sitting before Aizawa and Emi on the island counter in the kitchen was a magnificent and clearly well-made wedding-style cake. Standing next to the island counter and gesturing to the cake as if he were presenting it to his homeroom teacher and said teacher's fiancé was Sato, the resident baker and sweets-lover of Aizawa's homeroom class.

"Yeah, I've actually made cakes for weddings before, Aizawa-sensei," Sato remarked as he gestured to the cake, "This isn't the cake that will be served at your and Ms. Joke's wedding, but rather a sample cake to show you what I am capable of in the kitchen. You and Ms. Joke may try it if you wish."

"Hot damn!" Emi exclaimed as she walked right over, got a slice of the cake, and took a bite out of it. When she ate that first forkful of the sample wedding cake that Sato made, her eyes grew so wide with shocked surprise that it seemed borderline impossible. She savored the flavor of the cake, her eyes sparkling as if she had just tasted a flavor she never thought to even exist up until this point. After a few seconds of chewing and tasting, Emi swallowed the mouthful of wedding cake that she had in her mouth.

After that, the Smile Hero turned slowly to face Aizawa. "…This is legit, Shouta. I seriously think that we ought to commission your student here to make the actual wedding cake for our wedding when it happens later this month."

The underground hero, with a wry eyebrow arched, decided to get a slice of the cake himself and try it. He had heard from the girl students in his homeroom that Sato could make baked treats to die for, but Sato was still a student; with all due respect to Sato, Aizawa was actually going to spring for a professional to make the cake for his and Emi's wedding. Honestly, Aizawa was only up to try some of the cake Sato made because Emi was insisting.

…After eating that first forkful, Aizawa could very easily see why the girls in his homeroom were so eager to try what all culinary marvels Sato could whip up. He could see why Emi was going on about how they absolutely had to commission Sato to bake the actual cake for their wedding when it happened. Aizawa also felt that he owed something of an apology to Sato, as he had underestimated the strong boy's mastery of baking.

Swallowing the forkful of sample wedding cake he had in his mouth, Aizawa turned to regard Sato, a serious look on his face. "…Emi and I are going to have to talk about it seriously, but I can very easily see the possibility of the two of us actually commissioning you to bake the actual cake for our wedding, Sato."

Sato's eyes widened a bit in surprise. "Really, Aizawa-sensei?" Sato asked, "I mean, I really only made this cake because the girls all prompted me to. I didn't seriously think that you and Ms. Joke would seriously ask me to bake the actual cake for your wedding."

"Well it's very high quality wedding cake, Sato, I have to admit," Aizawa replied. He and Emi finished the slices of wedding cake that they had before having to take off from the dorm building, leaving the rest of the wedding cake; Emi said that Sato ought to let the girls finish it off, since they are all so fond of the baked goodies that Sato can make. Sato agreed and, seeing how much sample wedding cake was left, decided to call all of the girls of both 2-A and 2-B.

The girls in the rival class to Sato's had never tried any of his baking; he wondered what they would all say about it when given the chance to try it.

* * *

Itsuka and all of the girls in her class loved Sato's baking just as much as the 2-A girls. Within short order, the girls of class 2-A and 2-B devoured the plentiful remains of the sample wedding cake, prompting Sato to consider baking either a larger wedding cake for Aizawa's and Emi's wedding, or baking multiple cakes of the same size as the sample wedding cake that the girls of the second year hero course had just consumed.

A good number of the girls had multiple servings of sample wedding cake. Yaoyorozu gladly helped herself as Sato gave her and the other girls free reign to eat as much as they could manage. Due to her present financial status, the ponytailed girl, now barely above lower class, lacked the funds to buy a steady amount of food to help replenish the lipids that she spent when she used her quirk; she was hoping to stock up a bit to help her quirk out later.

Even so, Yaoyorozu's consumption, which is excusable as she needed it to fuel her quirk, paled in comparison to the amount that Sakaki packed away. Nezuko, the girl who had been put into class A back when the girls and the boys in their respective classes were still first years, was about to say something about how the fat cat girl could out-eat an army, but Nezuko was cut off when Setsuna of class 2-B remarked, "Wow, Uraraka, I think that you ate as much as Sakaki!"

The girls, 2-A and 2-B alike, all turned to look at Uraraka, who was blushing mildly in embarrassment, having the decency to look mildly ashamed over how much of a pig she had apparently just been. Ibara was about to say something else, most likely a comment on how she agreed with Setsuna, but the devout Christian of class 2-B was cut off by her class's rep, Itsuka. The orange-haired girl gave her classmates an accusing glare.

"Hey, lay off of Uraraka," Itsuka said as she scolded her fellow 2-B girls, "She's still rattled by all of the danger she had been in last year, not to mention the fact that she's still upset about her mother being murdered."

"I still can't believe that the man I flat out refuse to acknowledge anymore had done as much as he did to Uraraka and her family," Yaoyorozu said in a guilty tone, "Simply because he did not like how their construction company had disrupted his monopoly on the industry."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Nezuko remarked in a dry, indifferent tone, "So Zero-G here is doing a mix of stress and comfort eating. I guess that explains why she's got a good bit of muffin top going on right now."

Some of the other girls in 2-A and 2-B were a bit surprise with how upfront the demonic girl was being, just up and saying how Uraraka, in all honesty, really had gone up in weight a bit. This was a fact that the gravity girl herself acknowledged. Letting out a resigned sigh, Uraraka said, "I know that I've gotten rather chubby, and I have been meaning to lose the excess weight."

Gently shaking her head, Uraraka explained, "But I still feel stressed about what all I had gone through before the danger I was in ended during the previous school year. I'm also honestly still really upset about losing my mother last year, and the only way I found to make myself feel better whenever I'm troubled by both my experiences last year and the death of my mother is to get a snack." Swallowing a lump in her throat, the chubby gravity girl added, "There's…also one other thing that has me eating to calm my nervousness."

"Let me guess," Mina said, a devilishly amused look on her face, "You're still in love with Izuku." Walking up to Uraraka, the pink-skinned girl gave Uraraka's notable belly a poke as she added, "And you're a bit afraid that Izuku will end up rejecting you when he sees that you have gotten rather plush." Uraraka's face lit up with an embarrassed blushing that made it clear that Mina's guess had been rather spot on.

Letting out an amused giggle that made it clear she knew she was right, Mina gave Uraraka a gentle pat on the shoulder. "Girl, there is no need to worry. The girls and I will help you work on your charm, get you into all the right situations with Izuku so that the two of you can get together as the couple that Itsuka and I have always been wanting to see here at U.A."

"Wait a minute," Uraraka said, a mildly confused look on her face, "What?"

"Yeah, Mina and I have had something of an interest in getting you and all of the other girls in our respective classes together with guys," Itsuka admitted, blushing a bit out of embarrassment in the process, "I'm especially interested in getting girls together with guys that said girls are in love with, like with what all I did to try and get Kinoko together with Kirishima." Clapping her hands together, Itsuka pointed at Uraraka and said, "With all of that being said, we know full well that you want the green, and Mina and I at the very least will do what we can to help you hook up with your dream guy."

Uraraka had a mildly embarrassed, but also clearly grateful, look on her face. "Thanks for being so willing to help, girls," Uraraka remarked, something that Mina and Itsuka both nodded to. The gravity girl then let out a troubled sigh, catching the attention of a lot of the girls. "…But I'm still afraid that something will pop up that will complicate things," Uraraka admitted, "Like what if Izuku is still mourning Bakugo's mom, who he was dating up until she died."

"Bakugo tell me Izuku got over last girlfriend death long ago," Pony explained to Uraraka, making her turn to face the half-American girl, "Sometime much before second year started. Bakugo also confirm Izuku also ready to find new love to have in life."

"Izuku is ready and willing to put himself out on the market again," Mina said as she clapped her hands together, "That means he's perfectly available for you to scoop up, Uraraka!"

The rest of the girls, 2-A and 2-B alike, all cheered excitedly for Uraraka, now that she was free to go after her dream guy. The gravity girl, still a little nervous about if Izuku will accept her or not, nodded slowly to show that she was willing to let all of the other girls help her out in getting the green-haired cinnamon roll to agree to go out with her. Uraraka was still worried that she may not actually be in exactly the perfect time to try for Izuku, worried that he may reject her on the basis of how she had gained some weight, or turn her down because he might still need a bit more time to mourn Mitsuki.

But Uraraka, emboldened by the reassurances of the 2-A and 2-B girls, was willing to take the risks needed to pursue Izuku.

* * *

The first thing that the girls decided to try was have Uraraka show her gentle, loving side by being nice to Eri; the little horned girl was very close to Izuku, as well as Mirio-sempai who had since graduated from U.A. and was now attending the police academy so he could still have a career where he could help people. But that's a bit off subject. The main point here is that Mina and Itsuka led Uraraka to where Eri could be found.

Given that it was a day off from classes at U.A., the girls found Eri sitting on the sofa in the teacher's lounge, watching a Claymation movie that had been put on for her. When she saw that some of the older girls that are students at U.A. were there, Eri turned to face them, a happy smile on her face. "Oh, hello," Eri greeted, a look of mild wondering curiosity on her face, "Is something the matter?" A look of mild worry crossed her face. "That short purple guy isn't coming back, is he?"

"Hell to the no on Mineta returning, Eri," Mina replied, "The girls and I are here with some good news for you. You know how Izuku, as well as Mirio-sempai, are like cool big bros to you?"

Eri smiled a bit at the mention of some of her favorite people. Nodding a bit, Eri replied, "Izuku and Mirio are really nice to me. Shinso is also really nice, and he's already as much of a big brother to me as possible. Oh, Shinso's girlfriend is also really nice, and she's sort of like a big sister. I never had a sister before, so I really like being with Sakaki."

Nodding a bit in agreement, Mina said, "Yes, yes, Sakaki is a good role model to you, Eri. However, there's something I've noticed." Pointing to the little horned girl, Mina declared, "You have _three_ big brothers, but only _one_ big sister!" Gesturing to Uraraka, the pink-skinned girl went on, "Luckily for you, we've brought Uraraka here so that she can spend the day with you! She'll do all of the big sister stuff while you do all of the little sister stuff! Doesn't that sound really exciting, Eri?"

Predictably, Eri was hopping with excitement. "Yay!" Eri cheered, "Sakaki's busy with big brother, and papa's busy getting ready to make his lady friend my new mama, so I don't have anyone to play with!" A look of sudden realization crossed the little horned girl's face. "Oh! Maybe Uraraka can help me think of how I can get Asui-kun to like me when papa says that I'm old enough to try and make Asui-kun like me!"

Uraraka smiled a bit, finding Eri's crush on Tsuyu's younger brother Samidare to be adorable. "Yeah, talking about the boys we like sounds like a fun way to spend time," Uraraka agreed, giving a single nod of agreement.

"Oh! There's a boy that you like?" Eri asked, realizing what Uraraka had just said. Suddenly, a pouty, suspicious look crossed the little horned girl's face. "…Wait a minute, you aren't in love with Asui-kun as well, are you? I will wrestle with you to take you down if I have to so that you can't go after Asui-kun."

Both Mina and Itsuka couldn't help but giggle at Eri threatening Uraraka under the suspicion that the gravity girl was crushing on the sole Asui boy. Uraraka was likewise amused, and she gave a gentle shake of her head. "No Eri, Samidare isn't the boy that I'm in love with, and I will agree to help you get Samidare's attention when you're old enough to start dating."

Eri, after she processed what all Uraraka had said, smiled appreciatively before she wore her serious look again. "Good, because I would not hesitate to destroy you if you got between me and Asui-kun." Once more, the older girls could not help but find Eri's declaration to be funny on the adorable side; in all honesty, a girl making threats to other girls to stay away from her crush couldn't be taken all that seriously when the girl in question that was making threats is only _seven years old_.

"Eri, relax," Uraraka remarked, a mildly amused smile on her face, "Samidare is not the boy that I have a crush on.

Looking up at the somewhat chubby gravity girl, Eri asked, "Oh, then how about Izuku? Do you like Izuku, maybe?" Right away, Uraraka's face lit up red like a shiny Christmas tree ornament. Mina and Itsuka both caught the blushing and giggled amusedly, both of them surprised in an amused sense that Eri had guessed Uraraka's crush right off the bat. Eri herself didn't seem to realize it, so she had a look of wondering curiosity on her face as she looked up at Uraraka.

A hint of worry entered her expression as she continued to look up at Uraraka. "I'm sorry if I embarrassed you," Eri apologized, a hint of worry in her tone, "It's just that papa and big brother Shinso told me about when a bunch of books were read over the intercom and how that reading said that you liked Izuku, and then when Izuku and Mirio were watching me for papa a while ago Izuku told me that had a big crush on you, and then when Mirio graduated from school and was about to go to police school he told-"

"Woah, woah, woah, hold up a minute there, Eri," Mina said, cutting the little horned girl off. Looking down at Eri, Mina said, "Did…did you just say that Izuku has a crush on Uraraka?" At the mention of what Mina thought she heard Eri say, Uraraka lit up even more out.

A look of mild wondering was on Eri's face before it was replaced with confirming surprise. Nodding a bit, Eri said, "Yeah, Izuku told me that he thinks that Uraraka is the prettiest girl that he ever saw. He even said that he still thinks so when he came by to see me last night to tell me all about how well Mirio is doing over at police school! Mirio is doing very well, by the way!" When she was done talking, Eri noticed the looks of surprise on the faces of Mina, Itsuka and especially Uraraka. "Umm…are you girls all okay?" Eri asked, sounding a bit worried.

"So Izuku, he…he _already_ has romantic feelings for me?" Uraraka asked, "Oh…oh my god! Oh my god, Izuku likes me! He actually likes me!" Mina ended up leading Uraraka and Itsuka in jumping up and down out of excitement as they all cheered.

Eri, who was happy to see the older girls all excited, joined them in jumping up and down while cheering. "Yay! Why are we cheering?" the little horned girl asked.

Patting Uraraka on the shoulder, Itsuka said while addressing Eri, "Believe it or not Eri, Uraraka here has a crush on Izuku, and was hoping to work up the courage to get him to notice her, or at least work on her charms to get him to ask her out."

"Oh my goodness, really?" Eri asked, right before she went back to hopping up and down out of excitement. "Yay! Izuku will be happy to hear girl that he likes has a crush on him!" Thanks to learning from Eri that the job that they had was going to be a hell of a lot easier to accomplish, the girls all got to work figuring out how to have Uraraka go about working up the courage to either get Izuku to ask her out, or for her to ask Izuku out if it came down to it. The gravity girl was nervous, but she hoped that she would be able to go for the green by the end of the day.

* * *

Later in the halls of U.A., Izuku was walking along with Tsuyu and Kirishima. "So you were able to give the wedding invite to Mirio-sempai, right kero?" Tsuyu asked as she looked at her green-eyed classmate.

Nodding in confirmation, Izuku said, "Yes, I was able to give the wedding invite to Mirio-sempai. To make things even better, the wedding just so happens to be scheduled during a block of time that Mirio-sempai and the others over at the police academy are going to have some time off, so there will be nothing restricting him from being able to come see Aizawa-sensei and Ms. Joke get married on their wedding day."

"Well alright," Kirishima remarked as he clapped his hands together, "Glad to hear that he'll be free to come! Similarly, Tamaki-sempai will be at the wedding as well since I gave him the wedding invite while Fat Gum was standing there and he instead that Tamaki accept."

"And Nejire-sempai is free to come since Ryukyu-sensei was also invited," Tsuyu pointed out, "So it looks like all of them will be coming."

As Izuku, Kirishima and Tsuyu all nodded in agreement, they turned the corner and very nearly bumped into Eri running around. Luckily for them, Izuku was able to react quickly and catch the little horned girl, who was excited to see one of her favorite people. As Izuku scooped Eri up, Tsuyu noticed Mina come walking up, leading Itsuka and Uraraka. "Hey boys, hey Tsuyu," the pink-skinned girl remarked, "What are you all up to?"

"Oh, we all just got back from delivering invites to Mirio-sempai, Tamaki-sempai and Nejire-sempai for Aizawa-sensei's and Ms. Joke's upcoming wedding," Izuku explained, "What all were you three up to while-"

Izuku was interrupted when Eri, rather excitedly, gave his left shoulder a few slaps to get his attention. "Ooh, ooh, guess what, Izuku?" Eri said when he looked at her. Pointing over to where Uraraka stood with the other two girls, Eri continued with her current level of excitement, "She has something that's very super important that she wants to ask you about!" Izuku, as well as Kirishima and Tsuyu, all turned to regard Uraraka, who was lighting up a bit out of nervous embarrassment.

Izuku, curious as well as a bit nervous about what it was that Uraraka wanted to ask him about, looked at his classmate and said, "Umm, well alright then. What is it that you wanted to ask me about, Uraraka?"

Uraraka's nervous, embarrassed blushing became more pronounced as she looked down at the floor, her hands held together with the fingers locked into each other. The chubby gravity girl was even sweating a bit as she was working up the courage to say what it was that she wanted to get across to the green-eyed boy in front of her. Realizing that it was really the only way that she had to get her feelings across, Uraraka decided to just up and say it, albeit a tad bit louder than what she had originally intended.

"IZUKU I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU WILL YOU PLEASE BE MY BOYFRIEND?"

Izuku, as well as a similarly surprised Kirishima, stood there with blank looks of surprise on their respective faces. Tsuyu, on the other hand, merely remarked, "About damn time that you asked him out already kero." Crossing her arms over her chest, Tsuyu remarked, "Granted, because of those two jerk girls from last year, Izuku already knew that you liked him, but it's nice to see that you confessed to him properly."

Izuku was still a bit in shock over Uraraka confessing to him and straight up asking him to agree to go out with her. Just like Uraraka, Izuku was also blushing with embarrassment. "Umm, well I mean to say, umm, wow," the green-eyed boy remarked, stammering over his words a bit, "It never occurred to me that a girl I go to school with would confess to me." Looking at Uraraka, Izuku swallowed a nervous lump in his throat. "…But honestly, going out with you is something that I would love to do, Uraraka."

"You…really?" Uraraka asked, honestly surprised that Izuku would actually agree, despite having been told by Eri ahead of time that Izuku liked her (Uraraka) as she liked him. "You really like me?" Uraraka asked, unable to help but tear up a bit, "Even though it embarrassed you when my private journal was read over the intercom last year? Even though in all honesty I've gotten rather big?" Her eyes wincing a little as she started teared up a bit more, Uraraka asked, "You honestly really like me, Izuku?"

The green-haired cinnamon roll nodded calmly in the affirmative. "…I do, and none of what you said honestly has any effect on how I feel."

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Mina and Itsuka, who were also joined by Tsuyu, squealed excitedly as they all proceeded to hop up and down out of excitement. Eri also joined the other girls when she got Izuku to let her down, and Uraraka, overcome with happiness because Izuku had said yes to her, couldn't help it as she ran right up to Izuku and threw her arms around him, squeezing him tightly.

Being hugged by Uraraka like that made Izuku blush even more than he already was.

Before either Izuku or Kirishima knew what was happening, the girls all ran off, with Mina telling Izuku that she will look into things for him and Uraraka later. Alone in the hallway (the girls even took Eri with them), Izuku and Kirishima turned to look at one another. "…What the hell just happened, dude?" Kirishima asked, drawing a confused shrug out of Izuku. Even though he was honestly rather confused by what all had just taken place, Izuku was still on a bit of a high of happiness.

After all, he and Uraraka were now an item.

…

The other 2-A and 2-B girls were hanging about together when Mina, leading Uraraka, Itsuka, Tsuyu and Eri inside, burst onto the scene. "Oh my god! Okay, it's happening!" Mina exclaimed as she and the others came in, "Uraraka and Izuku are an item now! Everybody stay calm!"

This declaration got the attention of the other girls. "What's the procedure?" Reiko asked as she and the other girls all came to attention, all of them very clearly excited to hear that Uraraka had finally got together with the boy that she's in love with.

"STAY FUCKING CALM!" Mina exclaimed, "EVERYBODY CALM THE FUCK DOWN!"

* * *

That night, as he was laying down on his bed in his dorm room, Izuku was thinking about what all had transpired earlier in the day. He was still in shock, because Uraraka (properly) confessed that she was in love with him before asking him to be her boyfriend. The green-haired cinnamon roll, who also liked Uraraka the way that she liked him, agreed to go out with her, given that he has since moved on from his last relationship.

Speaking of relationships, Izuku was looking forward to exploring the one he had just started with his now girlfriend Uraraka. He had always liked her, to be honest, always thought that the gravity girl was a wonderful person with a kind personality. Izuku also thought that Uraraka was firmly on the cute side. He had always felt that way about Uraraka, but now Izuku felt that she was even cuter now that she was, to put things in a certain way, softer.

Izuku fully acknowledged that Uraraka had gained some weight, but that didn't bother him. In fact, he felt that his new girlfriend wore her weight rather well. Izuku also liked it when Uraraka turned around and left with the other girls, as it gave him a view of the gravity girl's notably sizable rear end, how it had a bit more-

The green-haired cinnamon roll, with a shocked look on his face as his trail of thought was interrupted, suddenly sat upright on his bed. He slowly held his slightly clenched hands to the sides of his head as he had a look of shocked, dawning realization on his face. "…Oh my god," Izuku said to himself in a shocked tone, "Mitsuki was right. I _did_ inherit my father's tastes in girls!"

…

From the heavens above, Mitsuki, dressed as an ancient Sumerian demigod, stood between Gilgamesh and Enkidu as they looked down on the living below them. The ascended ashy-haired woman in particular was looking down on her still-loving boyfriend, happy to see that he really did move on. However, that wasn't the main thing on her mind. Pointing down at where Izuku was in the mortal world, Mitsuki remarked, "I certainly hope that someone picks up the phone."

Gilgamesh and Enkidu both turned to look at Mitsuki, wondering what she was talking about. They got their answer a few seconds later when the ascended ashy-haired woman said, "Because I fucking _CALLED IT_!"

END, CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

Author's notes;

This chapter has a bit more progress to the ultimate end of this story, which will feature the wedding of Aizawa and Emi. Aside from that, the main point of this chapter was Uraraka getting together with Izuku. She was fretting over how Izuku may turn her down, due of a mix of the comfort eating she did because of what all she went through in her first year as well as how the green-eyed boy may still be mourning Mitsuki.

But no, Izuku has moved on from his last relationship ending, and nothing about Uraraka changed how Izuku feels about her. As such, the two of them are now an item, and the freak-out Mina had when she and the girls met up with everyone else is very understandable. Also, I wanted to show that Mitsuki, who regretfully had passed away during the previous arc, was now at peace, having ascended to the specific idea for her afterlife that she had mentioned. Yes, Bakugo's mom is now an immortal, ancient Sumerian demigod. Not bad for an afterlife, huh?

Anyway, the next chapter will see more progress towards the wedding of Aizawa and Emi. It will actually be the main focus, as there will be all manner of pre-wedding shenanigans that have to be addressed before the big day.


	74. Chapter 74

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter seventy-four: You have to RSVP, and other pre-wedding shenanigans

Aizawa was sitting comfortably in a recliner in his living quarters in the teachers' dorm building on U.A. grounds, reading a book. As he sat reading, the underground hero's attention was drawn to his smartphone, which was sitting on the small table next to his recliner. The smartphone, which was sitting under a table lamp, was going off. Curious, Aizawa put a bookmark so as to not lose his place in the book, set the book down, and picked up his smartphone.

Aizawa saw that the caller ID showed that the caller was Hound Dog. Now even more curious, Aizawa answered the call. "Hello, Hound Dog," Aizawa said as he answered the call, "Is there anything the matter?"

"Oh, it's nothing to worry about," Hound Dog's voice said as it came from the other end of the call, "It's just that I got an invitation to your and Ms. Joke's wedding, and it says that I have to RSVP if I'm coming. So, umm, yeah. I'm coming to the wedding."

Aizawa, although a mite annoyed that his reading was interrupted for such a reason, understood that Hound Dog was only acting in good faith. "…Thank you for letting me know, and I'm glad that you'll be coming to the wedding," Aizawa said before the call was ended. After that, he sat his smartphone back down where it was, picked his book back up, and resumed reading. He only got one paragraph, and barely that, read when he was interrupted by another call.

Repeating the same process, Aizawa eventually took a look at his smartphone's screen, which had the caller ID show that it was Fat Gum who was calling. "…Hello?" Aizawa said as he answered the call from the BMI Hero.

"Hey, I got the wedding invite, and I just wanted to RSPV like the invite says," Fat Gum's cheery voice came from the other end.

Once more, the underground hero had an internal resigned sigh. "Thank you, and I look forward to seeing you at my wedding," Aizawa replied before he ended the call. On instinct, Aizawa had decided to keep his smartphone on his lap so he could pick it up quicker. It was a smart move on his part, because Aizawa barely cracked his book back open when the smartphone went off once more. To Aizawa's surprise, the caller ID showed that the call was coming from Endeavor.

"Umm, I was sent an invite to your wedding, Eraserhead," Endeavor's voice came from the other end of the call, sounding a bit guilty, "But unfortunately I won't be able to come. The Hero Public Safety Commission is expecting some important visitors coming from England and their hero community, and the commission wants me, as I'm Japan's number one hero, to be there. It will take place the day of your wedding, hence why I have to regretfully turn down the invite."

Aizawa was a bit surprised that the caller this time was saying that they couldn't come to the wedding. Moreover, Aizawa never recalled setting an invite aside for Endeavor; did Emi send one to the Flame Hero? A question he'll have to ask his fiancé later. "…I understand that you have obligations due to your position as the number one hero," Aizawa replied before ending the call. Setting his smartphone back down on his lap, Aizawa was glad Endeavor wasn't coming to the wedding; Aizawa agreed to Emi's idea of making Tsuyu's little brother Samidare the ring bearer, and the underground hero knows that the sole Asui boy is flat out terrified of Endeavor.

That was one of the reasons why Aizawa didn't intend to invite the Flame Hero to the wedding.

* * *

The following morning, Izuku was going down the stairs in the dorm building for the 2-A boys, yawning a bit as he reached the base of the stairs on the ground floor. When Izuku got to the kitchen area, he was greeted by the sight of all of his male classmates who were in a relationship with either a girl in their class or a girl in class 2-B. "Okay bros, he's here," Kirishima said, prompting Sero and Kaminari to pull and hold up a banner that said 'congrats on getting zero-g girl!' while Kirishima blew on some party horns and Bakugo (yes, _Bakugo_) pulled the string on a party popper, releasing a small burst of confetti.

As Bakugo and the boys in his squad celebrated, the rest of the 2-A boys that were present all applauded for Izuku, drawing a confused look out of him. "Deku, we're fucking congratulating you on finally hooking up with Round Face," Bakugo explained, "Which, given the way I saw the two of you look at each other, I knew was going to happen eventually." Seeing that he was getting surprised looks from some of the other boys, Bakugo barked, "What? I'm not fucking blind, you stupid extras! I could see what was going on as clearly as any of you!"

"You…" Izuku began, the realization of what the other boys were doing sinking in, "…You guys are congratulating me on the fact that I'm dating Uraraka now?"

"Yeah, man," Shinso replied, shooting his green-haired friend an amused, congratulatory grin, "The two of you just seem to be made for each other. Oh, and if you think what the guys and I all did here is weird, you should see the party that Sakaki and the other girls in 2-A and 2-B all have planned to congratulate Uraraka for hooking up with you."

Izuku was surprised, and very much touched in an appreciative manner, that so many of his classmates would congratulate him on getting together with so wonderful of a girl. He almost shed a single tear of joy but was cut off when the other guys all came over, with Kaminari and Sero carrying a chair from a dinner table. The two boys made Izuku sit in the chair, then all of the boys pitched in to pick the chair up while Izuku was sitting in it, then proceeded to parade Izuku around while holding him up on that chair.

It was at this moment that Aizawa walked in on the boys in his homeroom class, intending to tell them something important concerning the special event that was coming up, but he stopped short when he saw what the other boys were all doing with Izuku. It took the boys twelve seconds for all of them to notice him, at which point all of them stopped short as they regarded their teacher with embarrassed expressions.

"…Is this related to what Eri told me about last night after Yamamaya brought her back," Aizawa began, "About how Midoriya is now dating Uraraka?"

"…Yes?" Kaminari replied with an unsure look on his face, being unsure because he and the others all had no idea how Aizawa would react.

The underground hero looked on at his male students for a bit, before he gave a casual, amused hum. "…I was going to go over class scheduling during the week in which my wedding to Emi is going to take place with you boys," Aizawa began, "But that can wait until later." To the surprise of all of the 2-A boys, Aizawa walked over to all of them, took Sero's place in holding the rear left chair leg, then said, "For now, we have a broccoli boy to parade around."

The other boys all cheered in amused excitement as their homeroom teacher, for some reason, decided to actually join them in their shenanigans. Izuku was greatly confused by all of it, but hey, he wasn't going to argue with Aizawa-sensei not losing his patience with any of them. Maybe he's just letting the happiness of what's to come for him get to him a bit.

* * *

"So Aizawa-sensei, Ms. Joke," Sato said as he stood with them in the kitchen of the cafeteria at U.A., "I can either try to spring for a single wedding cake that is very large, or make multiple wedding cakes of the same size as the sample one I made a while ago. It would be easier for me if I knew how many people are expected to come to the wedding."

Holding her fingers out as she counted off of them, Emi said, "Well there's all of Aizawa's students in his homeroom, Sekijiro and all of his homeroom students, Hizashi, All Might, Nezu, Snipe, Hound Dog, Nemuri, the family members of a few of Aizawa's homeroom students including Tsuyu's adorable little brother who will be the ring bearer as well as Tsuyu's little sister who will join little Eri as a flower girl, Pixie-Bob, all of her Wild, Wild Pussycat friends, Mandalay's cousin Kota, Mt. Lady, Ryukyu, Mirko, U.A.'s Big Three from last year…"

Giving his student a dry look, Aizawa said, "We're looking at a maximum of one-hundred guests at the wedding, Sato."

"Multiple wedding cakes the same size as the sample cake it is," Sato replied, "By the way, the sample wedding cake was very plainly decorated. You can expect more elaborately decorated wedding cakes for the actual wedding."

"Ooh, I bet that they will look lovely," Emi replied, "I think we can safely leave all of the food making to you, Sato."

Blushing a bit out of embarrassment, Sato said, "Honestly, I'm better suited to the baking of the cakes, as well as a few side baking things. As for cooking food that will be served at the wedding such as what all everyone will have for dinner, I won't be as good at that."

Aizawa nodded a few times in understanding. "I wasn't planning on trying to burden you too much, Sato. The fact that you're baking the wedding cakes in and of itself is more than I should have asked of you, but I am truly grateful you're doing it anyway."

Gasping in a shocked tone, Emi said in a sorry tone, "Oh no, I tried to push way too much onto just one person! I'm really sorry for being such a bride-zilla just now, Sato!"

Waving away the Smile Hero's worries, Sato said, "It's no big deal, Ms. Joke. People think I'm an all-around kitchen marvel all the time. No need to beat yourself up."

"Heh, you'd be surprised how afraid Emi here is of being a 'bride-zilla' as she had just put it," Aizawa said with an amused smirk, "When it comes to details like décor and whatnot, she simply tells the person who asks that so long as it wouldn't seem out of place at what most people would expect at regular weddings, she'd be happy. She's granted a lot of the people who are helping with getting everything for the wedding ready a lot of freedom."

"I just don't want the people who are so willing to help me and Aizawa make the happiest day of our lives feel like I'm trying to completely dominate them," Emi remarked with a mildly guilty look on her face, "I just want everyone to know that I truly appreciate what all they're doing for us for our wedding day."

Aizawa patted his fiancé on the back, getting her to turn to face him. "It's alright, Emi. I know that you mean well." Emi smiled a bit, a small, single tear running down the right side of her face. "Oh, while I have your attention, I have to ask," Aizawa began, "Was it you who sent Endeavor an invitation to our wedding?"

"Oh, yeah that was me," Emi replied in a curious tone, "I figured that since he's Todoroki's father, as well as Japan's number one hero, it'd be great to have him at the wedding. Why? Do you not like Endeavor for some reason?"

Shrugging, Aizawa remarked, "Eh, I'm not his biggest fan in the world but I can tolerate him. But the main reason I asked about Endeavor being invited is because the ring bearer that you got for the wedding is flat out terrified of Endeavor, and will instantly curl up into a fetal position if he so much as sees the man." Crossing his arms over his chest, Aizawa said, "If that happened when he was bringing the rings over, it would cause a huge mess during the wedding."

"Oh geez, I messed up badly!" Emi said, looking horrified.

Aizawa held a hand up in a gesture to cut Emi off. "There's no need to worry about it. Endeavor told me that he can't come to the wedding due to having obligations with the Commission the day of our wedding." The Smile Hero breathed a relieved sigh, glad that she had dodged one hell of a bullet that could have done a lot to kill her wedding.

Clapping his hands together, Sato said, "Now then Aizawa-sensei, Ms. Joke. Concerning the decorations on the cakes, as well as the cupcakes I also plan to make for the wedding, what all do you want me to do?"

"I would be perfectly happy with everything looking like what you'd expect to see at a traditional wedding," Emi replied with a gentle, appreciative smile, "No need to go overboard with anything ridiculous, Sato."

"Traditional-style, got it," Sato replied as he nodded once and gave Emi a thumbs-up, "I'll just have to look up some pictures of traditional wedding cake décor designs to help get my mind going, but it shouldn't be a problem." Emi nodded appreciatively, thankful that Sato was going so far for her and Aizawa.

As for the underground hero himself, he was glad that his wife-to-be was being so easy-going on all of the people, some of which are his students, helping to make the wedding day a day that they would never forget. Emi was being the total opposite of a 'bride-zilla', something that he bet she would appreciate hearing.

* * *

To Aizawa's surprise, the music was going to be performed by Artemis Norio, one of the boys in Sekijiro's class 2-B. Aizawa had figured that Kyoka, the music aficionado that she was, would be the one to spring for performing the music. However, Aizawa got it from the girls in his class that Kyoka still had a little bit of stage fright, her performance during the one school festival last school year being a one-time deal, and that Kyoka was secretly hoping to spend a fair bit of the time at the wedding with Kaminari.

And so it was that the exoskeletoned boy of class 2-B was going to perform the music. To the greater surprise of Aizawa, Artemis asked him what songs to perform after the loving couple were officially husband and wife, the songs that would be performed during the dancing after the knot was tied. What really surprised Aizawa, however, were Artemis's three friends who he had brought with him to talk to the underground hero and Emi on the matter. Aizawa had no idea that Artemis was friends with such a…select bunch of people.

The first was a normal looking guy with a shock of black, spiky hair going up from his head, and the guy wore a baggy dark-blue t-shirt, a baggy pair of studded cargo shorts, and a pair of boots. He also had a brown, furry tail that was reminiscent of a monkey's tail; obviously, the sign of a mutation type quirk.

The second guy who was part of Artemis's crew was a man about as tall as Aizawa, but incredibly muscular. The second guy had fair skin, greenish hair that was long enough to tie into a single braided ponytail that was draped over his left shoulder, and he wore a sleeveless white shirt that clung to his well-toned muscular chest, a pair of cut-off shorts, a pair of white socks and a pair of men's sandals.

The third and final guy was an old man that wore sunglasses. He had a bushy white moustache and beard, wore purplish pants, an orange Hawaiian shirt with yellow flower designs, and he had a large turtle shell on over his back, clearly a sign of a mutation quirk like the first guy's monkey tail. Aizawa had to admit, as he looked at all of Artemis's friends, that they were interesting.

"Aizawa-sensei, these are Sora, Zidane and Yertle," Artemis said as he gestured to all of his friends, "They're all part of my crew. Oh, my main man Samidare is also a part of this crew. I can't forget him."

"'Sup," Sora greeted, "Artemis told us that we're going to be playing at your wedding?"

Still a bit confused due to just meeting the exoskeletoned boy's 'crew', Aizawa merely nodded a bit in the affirmative. "…Uh, yeah."

"Oh my," Zidane remarked, the hint in his voice's tone suggesting that he was all about the men, "I bet that you must have butterflies in your stomach."

"I've encountered villains that make even All Might back when he was still an active pro hero sweat a bit out of nervousness," Aizawa remarked, "Trust me. I'm calm."

Nodding in acceptance of the teacher's response, Artemis said as he handed over a small sheet of paper, "These were the songs that my crew and I were planning to run by you and your fiancé to play at the wedding before we settle on which ones to actually play."

The underground hero gave the list a quick go-over, and found to his surprise that all of them were actually pretty good picks. "…I'll have to show this to Emi, but feel free to practice all of them," Aizawa remarked, "They all seem like solid contenders to me."

"Damn straight they're all solid contenders," Yertle remarked, "Those were the songs that I listened to back during the war, when I fought back to back with _Jesus_. I had my gun in one hand and a forty ounce of Mickey's in the other!"

Aizawa didn't know quite what to make of Yertle, or why a second-year boy in high school would claim who is clearly an elderly man as part of his 'crew'. Then again, Aizawa made no effort to dig into the personal lives of students unless it was very clearly warranted like the case of his former student Mineta. Besides which, Artemis wasn't even in Aizawa's homeroom, so that was a mess that the underground hero decided he would leave to Sekijiro.

Aizawa had his own messes to deal with.

* * *

The girls of 2-A and 2-B were all bubbling to the brim with excitement, given that Aizawa was getting married soon. Up in Uraraka's dorm room, she was wearing only a tank top and a pair of sleep shorts as she looked at herself in the full-length mirror in her dorm room. The mirror was a new item that she was able to get due to how insanely successful her family's construction company had gotten, thanks to that first commercial that her friends and classmates had made to help promote the business.

Sitting in Uraraka's dorm room with her were Tsuyu and Eunice, her fellow interns under the Dragoon Hero. "…You girls think that I can find something appropriate to wear for the day of the wedding?" the gravity girl asked in a concerned tone. Affording the thing to wear was no longer a concern to Uraraka, as she was now notable wealthy; only schoolmates who were in the upper parts of upper class, such as Todoroki and Tenya, could out-bid her.

No, Uraraka's concern of finding something to wear was more related if the something that she found would fit her; due to all of the stress and trauma that she had endured during her first year at U.A., as well as also losing her mother in that same time frame, Uraraka did a notable amount of comfort eating in an effort to feel better, resulting in her current chubbiness that she saw when she looked in the mirror. Uraraka was by no means obese, but it was still clear to her that she was now quite a bit bigger in the soft sense.

"I'm certain that you should have no issue getting just the right clothes to wear to the wedding, Uraraka," Tsuyu replied in a reassuring tone, "Not only will you look lovely, but I bet that Izuku will be the first to say so kero." Uraraka blushed a bit at her frog-like friend's mention of Izuku, the boy who Uraraka had been in love with for so long. Izuku was now Uraraka's boyfriend, a dream come true to the gravity girl.

And Izuku was another one of the reasons why Uraraka was so worried about looking good for when she attended her homeroom teacher's wedding to Ms. Joke.

"You will look nice," Eunice said simply, giving a single nod as she spoke, "I have every reason to suspect so." Tsuyu nodded in agreement with the green-haired girl as the two of them both looked at Uraraka.

The gravity girl smiled appreciatively as she regarded her friends. "…Thanks, you two," Uraraka replied, "I just have to have confidence that I'll find just the right thing to wear to the wedding."

"You could always go to a tailor and have them make you a custom outfit to wear to the wedding kero," Tsuyu pointed out, "After all, you can now very easily afford such an-" Tsuyu was cut off when there was a knock at Uraraka's dorm room door.

Without waiting for an answer, the door opened to reveal Mina was the one who was on the other side. "Girls, I just got an update about Aizawa-sensei's wedding," the pink-skinned girl said, "Aizawa-sensei and Ms. Joke said that guests don't have to worry about dressing up for the wedding, they can come casually dressed. The whole properly dressed thing is just for people who have actual roles, like the couple to be, flower girls, the ring bearer, best man, bridesmaids and so on."

Nodding in understanding, Tsuyu remarked, "Given that Aizawa-sensei is marrying Ms. Joke, that makes sense. The whole 'guests can dress casually' thing must have been her idea. It'll also save Yaoyorozu a lot of trouble since not only does she lack anything proper to wear to a wedding, but she can by no means afford to get something proper to wear."

"I still can't believe that Yaoyorozu and Uraraka basically have switched spots in terms of financial class," Mina remarked with a chuckle.

"My family and I are nowhere near as wealthy as Yaoyorozu was prior to all of that mess involving her father," Uraraka pointed out.

Mina held up a hand to cut off further argument from the gravity girl. "Be that as it may, you nonetheless are in a position where you don't have to worry about money. Given what all you and your family had gone through, it's great that you all have finally caught a break."

Uraraka could tell that her pink-skinned friend was meaning well, so she gave a thankful nod of acknowledgement to Mina. "…Yeah, I'm still finding it hard to believe that at this point a year ago, my family and I were struggling money-wise. It was one of the main motivations that I had to become a pro hero, hoping to get to a position where I could make sure my family wouldn't have to struggle like that anymore." The gravity girl looked down to the floor, a nostalgic look on her face as she remembered her past.

"…But now those struggles are a thing of the past," Uraraka went on, "All thanks to what all you girls and the rest of our schoolmates had done for me and my family. I still can't believe that a commercial that we made for the construction company my parents started up, especially given that said commercial was made at an amateur-level, was so effective at bringing in business."

"And the second commercial that we're going to be doing will be even more awesome," Mina pointed out, "Partly because we're going to be having an even bigger crew for it than what we had for the first one."

Uraraka smiled appreciatively in response to what Mina said; if the first commercial that all of her schoolmates had made was as effective as it was in revitalizing the company her parents had started together, a company that her father had to run alone now because of what happened to her mother, then the gravity girl couldn't even imagine how effective the next commercial will be in bringing in a client base.

Uraraka felt that what all her friends and schoolmates were doing for her was more than she ever could have deserved. She had no idea how she could even begin to repay everyone for what all they have done for her and her father, even though from the looks of it some of her schoolmates, such as Mina, were doing what all they were doing for her partly because it was entertaining to a lot of them.

Mina seemed to be an easily entertained person. Same applies to Hatsume and Setsuna.

END, CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

Author's notes;

A lot more of the pre-wedding shenanigans had taken place here in order to help lead up to the big day itself. Additionally, there _is_ going to be another commercial for Uraraka Construction, and the business for all of that will go down in the next chapter. After that, it won't be all that long until things here are settled, but that doesn't mean that the adventures of the hero base in Japan will be done for good.

There's the sequel, as well as the Mineta-centric spinoff. I also came up with a plot for a story that covers a good part of Eri's first year at U.A., and there's no forgetting the Mitsuki AU. Yeah, those four will be covered, but I am going to have to ask for you guys to be patient on those; I have work to handle, so they will be taking some time.


	75. Chapter 75

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter seventy-five: Another commercial for Uraraka Construction

Izuku and Uraraka were making their way to Gym Gamma one well enough morning over at U.A. The pair had been summoned to the gym by their classmate Mina, who seemed a bit excited as to what all she must have in store for the two of them to see. Uraraka could tell that the pink-skinned girl was looking at her specifically as she spoke of 'all of the cool stuff that I got waiting in store to be seen'.

Eventually, the couple reached the doors to Gym Gamma, with Izuku opening the door for his now girlfriend. The gravity girl blushed at the gesture, still not believing her luck in how she had finally gotten the boy she had fallen in love with to go out with her. Uraraka had to suppress a squeal of happy excitement over how she had the green-eyed boy treating her like a proper lady. Uraraka gave a passing thought that Izuku must be so good at tending to her because he has had prior experience in dating.

Regardless, Uraraka walked into Gym Gamma as Izuku held the door open for her. As for that aforementioned squeal that she had to suppress, the gravity girl was able to suppress it quite well, but only because of how utterly surprised she was when she and Izuku saw what all was inside of Gym Gamma. But then again, since it was _Mina_ who had told them to come, the two of them kind of had to figure that there was going to be something that was a bit...out there.

The entirety of Gym Gamma had been converted into a sort of warehouse that held all manner of things that looked like they would be used in the process of making a commercial. Not only that, but everyone in both class 2-A and 2-B, plus a few others, were in the gym, milling about as they tried to get a hang on what all they had to do. Izuku and Uraraka both had a right mind to track down Mina, but suddenly, as if she had sensed it, Mina herself appeared before her classmates.

The pink-skinned girl of class 2-A was wearing a long-sleeved shirt that looks like a classical movie director would wear, an ascot going around her neck and under the collar of the shirt, a pair of khaki pants that puffed up a bit around her thighs, a pair of black boots that reached a bit up her shins, a red beret hat, and a pair of sunglasses. Mina was also carrying a red megaphone in her right hand.

"Ah, there's the star of the show," Mina remarked as she walked up to Uraraka, "You're just in time! We're about to go over some final details before we begin shooting the second commercial for your dad's business!"

"Is…" Uraraka began as she gestured to everything that was in Gym Gamma, "…Is all of this really all that necessary, Mina?"

Wagging a finger near Uraraka's confused looking face, Mina replied, "Oh Uraraka, you don't get it. We're working with a lot more people, funds and resources than what we had for the first commercial we did for you and your folks. We even got the same pro heroes as before to all agree to lend a helping hand, even if it's to only help boost the selling power of the commercial."

Uraraka and Izuku took another look around Gym Gamma. The two of them looked around a bit until Izuku spotted something that caught his attention. Patting Uraraka on the shoulder, Izuku got her to look in the direction he was pointing in, showing her what had caught his attention; to Uraraka's surprise, she saw that her father was in Gym Gamma, talking to Bakugo's father Masaru who, for some reason, was dressed exactly like her father. Masaru also had his hair in the same style as Uraraka's dad.

Pointing this out to Mina, Uraraka asked, "Why is both my dad and Bakugo's dad here, and why is Bakugo's dad dressed the same as mine? Also, why is their hair styled exactly the same?"

"Oh, Bakugo's dad is going to be an understudy for your dad," Mina replied casually, "I also managed to get Kinoko to be an understudy for you since she looks a bit similar to you."

"You…you certainly seem to have a grasp on what to do, Mina," Izuku remarked, impressed with what Mina had done and a bit too surprised to do much else.

Mina nodded a few times in agreement, and proceeded to have Izuku and Uraraka follow her around Gym Gamma. "We're going to spring for something similar to the first commercial that we did," Mina began to explain, "But we'll be changing a few things, mostly for the purposes of having everything updated." Clapping her hands together, Mina turned around quickly and said to Uraraka, "Oh, before I forget, we'll be getting the commercial finished and ready to air on TV this Friday night."

"Today's Monday!" Izuku pointed out, a bit surprised that the time table is so short, "That only gives us a few days to have the commercial ready to go, Mina!"

The pink-skinned girl gave an indifferent shrug. "We got the last commercial ready to go in a similar length of time, and we had less people, funding and resources for that. I'm certain that we can get the second commercial ready and rearing to go within due time."

Izuku had to relent to the point that Mina made; they really did get the first commercial for Uraraka Construction ready in such a short time span, and the commercial, given the quality that it had, was surprisingly good, not to mention effective. But then again, there were a royal load of pro heroes lending help, even if it was only in the form of lending their names as people who were endorsing the construction company.

This time, there was a good number more people helping out; additionally, there was a lot more stuff for the commercial, and Mina did mention how there was more funding. Izuku and Uraraka both felt that things were going to be a lot more interesting, especially since Mina seemed to be rather keen on directing everything. That alone told the 2-A couple that things were going to be rather interesting indeed.

* * *

During production for the second Uraraka Construction commercial, Izuku was standing off to the side in Gym Gamma, chatting it up with Bakugo and Todoroki. "I know that Pinky has been a part of my crew for a while, but she has yet to cease to surprise me," Bakugo remarked, "She got my dad to be an understudy for Round Face's dad, as well as get Kirishima's girl Shrooms to be an understudy for Round Face herself."

"Wait, why does Mina think that both Uraraka and her father need understudies?" Todoroki asked, sounding oddly casual in his questioning tone.

Giving an indifferent shrug, Bakugo replied, "I try not to figure out the bag full of cats that is Pinky's mind. It's part of the reason I'm a bit sorry and fearful for Sero, given that I got it from him and Pinky that they're now officially an item."

"Well so long as the two of them know what they're doing," Izuku remarked before taking a sip from the reusable water bottle he had. It was a thirty-two ounce bottle that was shaped to resemble an All Might tiki statue; even to this day, Izuku still idolized the former Symbol of Peace, as he was the green-haired cinnamon roll's inspiration to become a pro hero. As the boys were talking, they were approached by Uraraka.

To Izuku's surprise, Uraraka took the All Might water bottle from Izuku, took a chug from it, then handed the water bottle back to her boyfriend. "Umm, Uraraka, why did you just do that?" Izuku asked, "I mean, if you wanted something to drink, I could have gotten you-"

"Sorry, but I'm a bit ticked off at Monoma right now," Uraraka remarked, "When he saw me standing side to side with Kinoko while she and I were dressed exactly alike, he said that Kinoko was 'way too skinny to be the understudy of a class 2-A hippo'."

Arching a wry eyebrow, Todoroki remarked, "Well at least Monoma is only rude. The last asshole that we had in our year was an unrepentant pervert."

Uraraka stomped her foot in frustration as she growled, "That's not the point here, Todoroki! The point here is that Monoma, due to how much he hates our class and tries to have his class top us, won't stop-"

"Hold this for me, Uraraka," Izuku said, cutting his upset girlfriend off as he handed her his All Might water bottle and walked off, the look on his face suggesting that he was going to go look for something or someone. Bakugo, Todoroki and Uraraka all had no idea what the green-eyed boy was up to, but they got their answer a few seconds later when they saw Monoma fly through the air in Gym Gamma like an early dream of mankind, crashing onto a table that had been set up with some water bottles and a few boxes that had held donuts and the like.

No one gave Izuku any grief for sending Monoma flying clear across the length of Gym Gamma with a Detroit Smash to the face, partly because most everyone didn't care all that much for the blonde hysteric holler monkey of class 2-A, but mostly because Izuku, with Kinoko backing him up as she was also witness, ended up explaining his reason for striking Monoma the way that he did. When told of the incident by Kinoko, Kirishima told Izuku that what he did to Monoma was at the top of the list of manliest things he had ever heard of. Monoma ended up being reduced to stage crew to help with carrying around equipment and props, partly out of necessity due to the fact his injury wouldn't allow for strenuous work until it healed properly.

* * *

The following day, Izuku and the others were all back at Gym Gamma to do more work on the second Uraraka Construction commercial. As Izuku and Uraraka went over a few things with Mina, they were all interrupted when they heard Tsuyu call out to them. To the elated surprise of Uraraka, she saw Tsuyu and Eunice lead Ryukyu and Nejire over to where she was standing with Izuku and Mina as they discussed a few things.

Ryukyu, with a look of mild confusion on her face, pointed to Mina, who was in the same getup that she was wearing yesterday. "Umm…what's up with this, young lady?"

"Well I'm the director for filming the commercial," Mina explained to the Dragoon Hero, "With Hatsume and Setsuna as my vice-directors." No one noticed it when both Izuku and Uraraka both shuddered involuntarily, as if something shook them to their very respective cores.

Shrugging off Mina's answer, Ryukyu said, "Fair enough. Anyway, I was told that another commercial for the construction company Uraraka's family owns is being done, and that I was asked if I would be interested in lending a hand." Giving a single nod, Ryukyu said, "If that is indeed the case, then the answer is yes. Oh, Nejire is also willing to help out if need be."

"Well alright! Glad to have you aboard," Mina remarked, "And it's awesome to have Nejire-sempai back at U.A., even if it's just to help with the commercial!" Turning to regard Nejire, the pink-skinned girl remarked, "We really miss you here, Nejire-sempai. Itsuka ended up taking over your role as the 'big sis' of the girls-only dorm, and she's not as…free…as you, to put it in a certain way."

"She's not as lax as I was?" Nejire translated, drawing an affirmative nod out of Mina. Sighing in an understanding tone, the U.A. graduate remarked, "She's probably overcompensating due to being new to the burden of the role. Itsuka ought to ease up once she finds her footing."

Mina nodded in a manner to show that she was hoping that Nejire was correct in that assertion. After that, the pink-skinned girl said, "Well anyway, I'm glad that you're here, Ryukyu. Now we don't have to rely on the understudy we got that I dressed up as you."

The Dragoon Hero cocked a curious, mildly confused eyebrow. "…You got an understudy to dress up as me?"

"Yeah, and let me tell you that Tsuyu would probably have some words with me when she sees who the Ryukyu understudy is," Mina replied, a mildly embarrassed smile on her face.

The frog-like girl turned to look at Mina, a hint of suspicion in her expression. "…I'm probably going to regret asking this, but how did you get my mother to dress up as Ryukyu kero?"

Letting out an embarrassed chuckle, Mina said, "Actually…I got Samidare to do it."

"Samidare is eleven!" Tsuyu very nearly exclaimed, "And a boy! Mina, what made you think that dressing my little brother up as a female pro hero would be a good idea?"

"It wasn't the first time Mina disguised Samidare as a girl that's older than him," Izuku muttered dryly to himself in a knowing tone.

Due to all of the commotion that was being made, Tsuyu's little brother Samidare came wandering over, a bit of an apprehensive look on his face. Just as Mina had said, the sole Asui boy was dressed up as the Dragoon Hero, wearing a size-appropriate replica of Ryukyu's hero outfit; Samidare even wore a blonde wig. Samidare acted fine up until he saw that his favorite pro hero was standing right there; upon seeing Ryukyu, Samidare immediately covered his face as he moaned in an embarrassed tone.

Seeing the looks of surprise on the faces of everyone, Mina gestured to Samidare and explained, "So, umm, yeah. Sorry, but I wasn't quite sure if I would actually be able to get ahold of the real Ryukyu for the commercial, so this was the next best thing that I could come up with."

"As adorable as this is, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't fool a lot of people," Nejire remarked as she gestured to the young boy that had been dressed up as the pro hero who now employed her.

"But it is still very much adorable," Ryukyu said, letting out a single giggle that showed that she was amused, as well as a bit touched, by one of her fans (she knew full well that Samidare was one of her fans) dressing up as her. Turning to face Tsuyu, Ryukyu said, "Hey Tsuyu, would it be okay if I took a picture of your little brother here? I'm sorry, but this is just too precious of a photo opportunity to pass up."

The frog-like girl giggled a bit as well before she spoke up. "Yeah, I kind of want to take a picture of it as well kero." After Tsuyu was able to coax Samidare into lowering his hands and looking up so that they could see his face, Tsuyu and Ryukyu proceeded to take some pictures of him while he was dressed up as his favorite pro hero.

After taking and saving the photo of Samidare while he was dressed up as her, Ryukyu remarked, "There we go. Some pro heroes like to take pictures of their fans being dressed up as them, and I'm one such pro. But this is the first time I took a picture of one of my fans dressed up as me and the fan in question is male." Ryukyu took another look at the saved photo on her smartphone. "Heh, I bet that Mirko will get a kick out of this when she gets here in a bit."

"Oh, Mirko's coming after all?" Mina asked, a bit of a nervously embarrassed look on her face, "Well now, I guess I won't need the Mirko understudy now. Heh, heh." The look on Mina's face, as well as tone in which she spoke, were all the hints Tsuyu needed to know what was going on.

"…You dressed Satsuki up as Mirko, didn't you kero?"

* * *

The following days went by, with the occasional hiccups here and there, mostly due to how Mina, and to a lesser extent Hatsume and Setsuna, were running things. Even so, they were all able to get the second commercial for Uraraka Construction done. Given that Endeavor was still the number one pro hero in Japan at the moment, they had to do a bit of working around, given that Samidare was usually at the set while production was going on, and the sole Asui boy is flat out terrified of the Flame Hero.

But the commercial was still taken care of, making sure to give the pro heroes who were actually in the commercial visible roles, with Endeavor once again taking a leading spot. During all of the production, Izuku noticed with some amusement that Endeavor was trying to be friendly towards Reiko Yanagi of class 2-B. The Flame Hero seemed to be acting as if he were on thin ice, being careful not to anger or otherwise offend the ghost girl in any way. Izuku attributed that to the fact that Todoroki, who is Endeavor's youngest child, is dating Reiko.

Production for the commercial had finished by midday on Thursday of that week, in time for the first airing on Friday with a little bit of breathing room to spare. Everyone was hoping that with what all they had going into the project, which was a lot more than what they had when they had made the first commercial for Uraraka Construction, that the second commercial would be one hell of a showstopper. They got their answer when the commercial first aired Friday evening, just a bit after seven.

…

"Well wowee," Fatgum said as he stood outside of a set built to resemble a ruined house that was notable damaged, "That fight that I had with that villain that I defeated sure did a number on this family's house. Now my agency will have to shell out to pay for the repairs!"

"If you're worried about expenses for that, then may I make a suggestion?" A strong, commanding voice said from behind the BMI Hero, making him turn around to see who it was. As such, Fatgum spotted Endeavor walking up to him.

"Endeavor!" Fatgum exclaimed, looking surprised.

The Flame Hero gestured to the damaged, ruined house that he and Fatgum stood outside of. "A rebuilding job like this will be nothing for Uraraka Construction. Not only are they the most affordable people in the business, but they will do a quality job of it as well!"

Fatgum held a hand to his chin as he wore a contemplative look on his face while thinking about what all Endeavor had just told him. "Uraraka Construction you say, hmm? Well then, I'll have to give them a call!"

The commercial then proceeded to pan through a few shots of construction people at work doing building repair; there was even a shot of an entire crew, each and every one of them wearing Uraraka Construction t-shirts, working on repairing damage at a rather large mansion that clearly was the mansion that Yaoyorozu and her family used to live in prior to the raid to capture Ryoga because of what shenanigans he was up to at the time. A couple of pro heroes like Edgeshot and Gang Orca were also in that scene, looking like they were helping out.

As the commercial panned over those shots, Mirko's voice said as it narrated over the scenes, "Here at Uraraka Construction, we still offer the best quality work around, and at prices that still can't be beat."

The commercial then showed Ms. Joke standing in a living room set alone. "Uraraka Construction did a lot of repairs over at Ketsubutsu Academy," Emi said, "We wouldn't have been able to open our doors back up as early as we did if it weren't for Uraraka Construction." The Smile Hero then held her left fist to the right side of her waist before swinging it back up to hold aloft in the air.

The commercial then showed an outside view of Uraraka Construction, with Mirko narrating the scene as she said, "Uraraka Construction, were hope is rebuilt."

As the commercial lingered on that scene, Hizashi's voice said quickly at the end, "Uraraka Construction is still one-hundred percent endorsed by the following pro heroes." Suddenly, the names of all the pro heroes from the last commercial appeared on the screen in rapid-fire succession, each one appearing accompanied by the banging sound of a gunshot. The names stayed on screen until the commercial ended and the screen when to black.

…

In the meeting room of U.A. High School, Hizashi was standing in front of the TV as all other main staff members were seated at the meeting table, all of them having watched the commercial that was on TV just now. "So guys," Hizashi said, sounding like he was hoping that all of them would like what they had just seen, "What do all of you think?"

"That was simply marvelous," Nezu remarked, sounding like he was genuinely proud of what all students of his school would do for a friend, "I am glad to see that everyone is still so willing to help out their friends and allies in such a fashion."

"From what I've been able to gather on the matter," Aizawa remarked as he crossed his arms over his chest, "The construction company that Uraraka's father now runs alone really did do all of the repair work over at Ketsubutsu Academy." The underground hero let out a resigned, mildly sad sigh. "Of course, that all happened back before Uraraka's mother was killed in her own home. The police are still trying to figure out who did that crime, by the way."

Gently shaking his head, Toshinori remarked, "As much as I wish that justice will be served in that case, for now it's best to not dwell on the past." Gesturing to the now turned-off TV that was in the meeting room, the former Symbol of Peace remarked, "What we ought to consider is how much the youth of today is so willing to do their part to help out those that they care about. Young Miss Uraraka is truly blessed to have been surrounded by such a circle of those who all care about her, want to make sure she and her father don't struggle financially."

Nodding a bit in agreement with the blonde matchstick of a man, Sekijiro said, "Indeed. I think that the only student who is financially struggling right now is Yaoyorozu, and wow I cannot believe that I just said that Yaoyorozu is financially struggling."

Aizawa, with a bit of a bemused look on his face, shrugged. "…What can you say? Things get weird when the times change. At least Uraraka is trying to do what she can to help Yaoyorozu. I think that is has to do with how Uraraka had been in where Yaoyorozu is now in before, so she understands the struggles that are now currently facing her."

"Hooking her up with various ways to scrimp and save, you mean," Nemuri remarked, "I bet that Uraraka, the memories of her past in the lower class still fresh in her mind, can write an entire guidebook for Yaoyorozu and her mother to follow now that they have to account for every last yen that they have."

Aizawa nodded in agreement with the eighteen-only hero. "I got it that Uraraka has already helped Yaoyorozu out, and will do so again in the future if need be. Just as everyone else has had a part to help Uraraka, Uraraka herself will have a part in helping others." The underground hero cracked a mildly amused smile that had just a hint of pride in it. "I'm glad to see that Uraraka is by no means ungrateful. She sets a good example that other people should follow when they are helped out by others."

Everyone else at the meeting all nodded in agreement with Aizawa, likewise proud that Uraraka pays back the kindness that is shown to her when given the chance to do so.

* * *

Due to the massive success of the second commercial for Uraraka Construction, the students of class 2-A and 2-B were holding a celebratory party that Saturday evening in the common area of the dorm building for the class 2-A boys. All combined fifty students where there to celebrate how the second commercial had already shown results, with Uraraka Construction getting close to being swamped with clients; there was talk that Uraraka's dad was going to have to do some interviews to hire additional staff to help out.

As everyone was socializing at the party, Uraraka was able to find a place where she could be alone, although she ended up taking Izuku to that place with her. "Sorry, but I just needed to get a bit of breathing room so I could talk to you," the gravity girl said after she got her boyfriend alone with her, "Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for what all you did to help out."

"You're welcome Uraraka, and I'm glad that I was able to help," Izuku replied, "Umm, but to be honest, I didn't do all that much personally. I did just about as much as most everyone else in both our class and in class 2-B."

Uraraka, a tender expression of appreciation on her face, simply looked into the deep emerald pools that were her boyfriend's eyes. "…But you still helped out all the same. Given what you are to me, the fact that you helped out with the production is just that much more special to me. Seriously, Izuku, thanks for what all you've done for me." The gravity girl then gently threw her arms around Izuku's waist and pulled him into a hug, squeezing him gently against her moderate but still notable belly and somewhat enlarged…assets. Uraraka then rested her chin on Izuku's right shoulder. "Really Izuku. I love you."

Touched by the tender, sincere gesture from his girlfriend, Izuku decided to return the hug, gently put one arm around her waist and the other over her back. Uraraka felt like she was at the top of the world, to be held by Izuku in such a tender, affectionate manner. Uraraka actually had the thought to take one of Izuku's hands and lower it so that it was placed against her butt, but she thought better of it as they were still at the party.

Uraraka decided that she would try for that later. Izuku had very clearly earned it as far as she was concerned.

END, CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

Author's notes;

And that covers it for this chapter. Despite how this is more or less a filler chapter, it actually has a good reason for existing, a reason you will see in the next chapter. Speaking of which, the next chapter is where the long-awaited wedding of Aizawa and Emi will be taking place, so expect to see all sort of love in the air. It'll be a very lovely event that will see everyone at their absolute finest (the opening scene will even feature some of the villains that are in prison; they will also be getting a bit of love as well, don't worry about that), so keep your eyes peeled for it.


	76. Chapter 76

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter seventy-six: Love is in bloom, it would seem

Over at the regular prison where Dabi and the other surviving members of the League of Villains, all of them currently equipped with quirk-suppressing cuffs, were being kept due to a lack of available space over at Tartarus, Dabi and Spinner found themselves in a police lineup in a room that had a large panel of glass in front of them; they couldn't see out of it, but people on the other side would be able to see through it and see them in the room.

That wasn't all; Dabi and Spinner were with three other guys, although one of them is Danjuro Tobita, also known as the villain Gentle Criminal. Danjuro is a friend that Dabi, Spinner and the others had made since arriving at prison, and they now count him as a solid part of their circle. Anyway, the five prisoners were in a line, with Danjuro at the one end holding a sign that had the number one on it, Dabi next to him holding a number two sign, and Spinner next to Dabi while he held a number three sign. The two guys going out from Spinner were numbers four and five.

"Hey guys," Dabi whispered to Spinner and Danjuro, "What the hell is going on here?"

"I'm afraid that I'm not sure how to answer that," Danjuro replied, "All I can tell is that we're in a police lineup because the three of us are suspects in a crime somehow."

Shrugging indifferently, Spinner remarked, "I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that the guilty party is somehow either of the two shmucks that are in here with the three of us." Dabi and Danjuro both gently nodded in agreement with the lizardman villain.

After a while of waiting, the five suspects in the room heard a voice come in from an intercom system. It was actually the voice of Hizashi Yamada, also known as Present Mic, but all of the suspects in the room either did not know or didn't recognize the voice. "Number one, can you please sing the opening to _I want it that way_?" Hizashi's voice said over the intercom.

"Really?" Danjuro remarked, "…Okay." At that point, the impromptu rendition of a boy band song was performed by the five suspects in the police lineup; Dabi, Spinner and Danjuro had no idea whatsoever what Hizashi was trying to do, and from their point of view it seemed like he was just fucking with them. It did seem that, as the impromptu rendition went on, Hizashi got more and more into it.

After the singing was concluded, the suspects in the lineup just remained standing there. Dabi, Spinner and Danjuro in particular looked like they wanted answers to why they were just made to go through a scenario that wouldn't look all that out of place over at a karaoke bar. At the very least, the three of them had a story that they could tell to Toga, Mr. Compress and Skeptic later when they all met back up with each other.

* * *

Over at U.A. High School, Aizawa was standing in a dressing room alone with Sekijiro. Both men were dressed in casual formal wear; it was clear that they wanted to look nice, but there was no need for them to go whole hog on the matter. As the two of them chatted casually, Hizashi came running into the dressing room, dressed in a manner similar to Aizawa and Sekijiro. There was a clearly embarrassed look of apology on the cockatiel-haired hero's face.

"Sorry about running late, guys," Hizashi apologized, "But I got caught up in running a police lineup to help a woman identify a suspect in the case of a criminal or villain that had murdered her older brother. She was hiding in a stall so she didn't see him, but she did hear him singing along to a song that was playing nearby at the time." Shaking his hands casually as if he had just washed them and was drying them off, Hizashi continued, "I got the guys to all sing along, and hoo boy, did it give me chills. I actually forgot that I was helping that woman identify a killer for a minute there."

Aizawa gave an indifferent sigh, shrugging off his co-worker's story. "It doesn't matter in the end, Hizashi. What matters is the fact that you actually got here within good time. That's all that I can really ask for."

Hizashi perked up a bit at the underground hero's reply to his explanation. "…Oh, I'm not late?" Shrugging, Hizashi went on as he walked over to join Aizawa and Sekijiro, "Well cool beans to that, my bros. So, what all are we doing today?"

"We're doing the rehearsal for Aizawa's wedding with Emi," Sekijiro explained, "That's why we're all wearing nice clothing. We want to look the part for the rehearsal today, although we will be wearing more formal outfits on the big day itself." Turning to face Aizawa, the Blood Hero asked, "So tell me, Aizawa. You ready for the rehearsal?"

"Is it normal to not feel nervous about a wedding rehearsal?" Aizawa replied.

Hizashi, gently shaking his head as he shrugged, let out a mildly amused chuckle. "Dang, Aizawa, you're like the total embodiment of calm. Most people when they get married tend to get nervous at just the rehearsal, with the big day itself being even more nerve-wracking to them. How is it that you aren't rattled?"

Aizawa, a calm and amused look on his face, merely smiled in response. "…Because I've seen things that have long since killed my ability to be nervous over everything but the biggest and most notable happenings. If something as simple as a wedding rehearsal had me sweating bullets, then how could I face some of the more dangerous villains that we've ever had to deal with?"

"There's a difference between work-related dangers and binding your life to that of the woman that you are going to be together forever with," Hizashi pointed out, crossing his arms over his chest as he regarded his friend. Shrugging, the cockatiel-haired pro hero asked, "Seriously, man. Is there _anything_ that has you nervous?"

The underground hero looked as if he were giving the notion some thought for a bit. After a couple of seconds, a look of mild realization crossed Aizawa's face. He let out a mildly resigned sigh before he spoke up. "…Actually, yeah. There _is_ something that has me a little nervous. It's something that Emi and I plan to do soon after the two of us are officially married."

The answer from Aizawa, as well as the air he was giving off as he spoke, caught the attention of both Hizashi and Sekijiro, both of them leaning in a bit out of piqued interest. "Oh?" Sekijiro said, a slight hint of amusement in his tone, "You are nervous about something? And what might that be, Aizawa?"

"Emi and I are going to be officially adopting Shinso and Eri."

Both Hizashi and Sekijiro went a bit wide-eyed at what Aizawa had just told them. A bit of an embarrassed look appeared across Aizawa's face. "…Yeah, it's something that the two of us have discussed a bit before. You two are the only ones who I've informed on the matter, so I'd appreciate it if you guys were to keep quiet on the matter. Shinso and Eri don't know yet, and Emi and I would like it to be a surprise."

To his surprise, Aizawa saw that neither Sekijiro or Hizashi were laughing at him. In fact, both of them looked to have a bit of a finer appreciation for the kind of person that he was. "…So you getting married does nothing to frighten you," Sekijiro began, "But the prospect of becoming a father has butterflies in your stomach?"

"Aww," Hizashi said as he walked up to Aizawa with his arms out to him, "Come here, dude." Wrapping Aizawa up in a hug that the underground hero did not want, Hizashi remarked, "You are such a big softie, did you know that?"

"Get your arms off of me." The cockatiel-haired pro hero let go of Aizawa, allowing him to dust himself off a bit. Looking to his co-workers, he went on, "Emi hasn't told anyone yet herself, so I'd appreciate it if neither of you told her, or anyone else for that matter."

Reaching forward to Aizawa, Sekijiro gave him a friendly pat on his left bicep. "You don't have to worry about a thing, buddy. It'll be our little secret."

"Hey, name your first kid after me, ehh?" Hizashi remarked, pointing to Aizawa with both of his index fingers. Aizawa and Sekijiro both looked at Hizashi like he was an idiot. He wasn't blind to the looks he was getting, because Hizashi asked in a confused tone, "…What?"

* * *

Over in the kitchen at the U.A. cafeteria, Izuku, Bakugo and Todoroki walked in to see what all was going on. As such, the three of them saw a selection of fully completed wedding cakes; they all looked identical, with the same size, shape, number of layers and general decoration. The décor each wedding cake had was clearly designed to go for what many would expect when they think of what people would see at a traditional wedding.

As the boys all stared at the cakes, their classmate Sato came walking into the kitchen. "Oh, hey guys," Sato greeted, "Yeah, due to how many are expected to come to the wedding between Aizawa-sensei and Ms. Joke, it was kind of necessary for me to bake multiple wedding cakes." The sugar rush teen gestured to all of his culinary creations, a hint of pride in his expression. "What do all of you guys think?"

"That if you weren't gunning to be a hero," Todoroki replied, "You would still have one hell of a career working in a bakery or a sweets shop. Seriously, your skills here look to be at pro level."

Sato clapped his hands together as he wore a mildly amused smile on his face. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Todoroki," Sato said, "Here's hoping that it flies well with the happy couple to be, as well as all of the wedding guests."

"Well if these all taste as good as Uraraka told me the sample cake you made a while ago tastes, then I have no doubt there won't be any leftovers," Izuku commented, looking rather approving of his classmate's culinary skills.

Bakugo chuckled a bit. "Yeah, some of the girls will undoubtedly wolf down all of the leftover cake, knowing them. I'm calling it that Cat Girl will down the most."

A look of remembering something crossed Sato's face. "Oh, that reminds me. A lot of the guys told me that some of the girls are viewing the wedding as the perfect opportunity to go to a special event with their boyfriends." Giving Izuku, Bakugo and Todoroki knowing looks, Sato said, "I can only assume that you boys plan to go to the wedding with your respective girlfriends as your dates?"

"Well why wouldn't we?" Todoroki said, "In fact, I was planning to take Reiko out to buy her a proper outfit to wear to the wedding before we got it that guests are allowed to come to the wedding dressed casually." Shrugging, the two-toned boy added, "I kind of would have enjoyed seeing Reiko dress up a bit, to be honest."

"Enjoy seeing her dress up," Bakugo began as he turned to face Todoroki, a hint of knowingness in his tone, "Or enjoy getting to dress her up yourself, IcyHot?"

Izuku couldn't help but chuckle at what was clearly playful banter between Bakugo and Todoroki. He never would have expected such friendly interaction between the two boys, mostly because there's very few people that the explosive teen gets along with. Izuku just assumed that the fact that a wedding, one that would see their sensei become a husband no less, was coming up had something to do with making the boys, Bakugo mostly, friendlier with one another.

Izuku also reflected on what all that had happened over recent times, all of the struggles and hardships that he and his classmates and schoolmates had gone through. After so much pain and conflict, Izuku felt that he and everyone else had finally gotten to a lasting period of peace, where they were free to live their lives without worry about what the future may hold. They'd be able to actually focus on school at U.A., train to be the pro heroes they all want to be.

There was also freedom to focus on their social lives, a freedom that many of the boys, Izuku being one of them, were taking advantage of. Izuku's own social life has had its ups and downs, but now the green-haired cinnamon roll felt as if his social life has settled down, has reached a good resting point where he could comfortably enjoy his newfound relationship with his now girlfriend, Ochaco Uraraka.

Izuku was also surprised to learn just how badly Uraraka wanted him; what their classmate Mina said about Uraraka 'craving that green' didn't seem to be too far off the mark, even though Izuku had wished that the pink-skinned girl would have phrased it differently.

* * *

Over at the girls-only dorm building on U.A. grounds, the girls of class 2-A and 2-B were standing around Eri, the little horned girl that all of them cared about and protected from the evil naughty stuff, and Satsuki, the younger sister of class 2-A girl Tsuyu. Both little girls wore identical sleeveless white dresses that reached halfway down their shins; they also wore white leggings, and white shoes with straps that had golden bronze buckles. Both little girls were also holding simple baskets that had loop handles.

"Ooh, you two look simply precious!" Yui remarked as she and some of the other second-year hero course girls gushed over how cute Eri and Satsuki both looked, "You two are going to be the cutest flower girls ever!"

"Yes, we're going to throw flowers to announce when Mr. Aizawa and his pretty lady friend are going to walk down the aisle," Satsuki said. Turning to look at her older sister, Satsuki asked, "Hey Tsuyu, what's big brother going to be doing again?"

"Samidare is going to be the ring bearer," Tsuyu explained, "His job is to bring the rings over to Aizawa-sensei and Ms. Joke during the ceremony. He actually did the job quite well during the rehearsal earlier, although I think it helped that he was given a run-down of what all would happen, and he was able to schedule all of the events in his mind to help him figure out what all would be happening and when."

A look of mildly piqued interest appeared on Yaoyorozu's face as the formerly wealthy girl turned to face her frog-like classmate. "Oh yeah, your younger brother likes to work like he has everything on a schedule." Tsuyu nodded in confirmation to Yaoyorozu's comment.

Clapping her hands together, Itsuka said, "Well girls, I hope all of you figured out what all you're going to be getting for Aizawa-sensei and Ms. Joke as wedding gifts. I already got one picked out and stored away for the big day."

"Oh, I was able to get something rather nice for the two of them," Uraraka remarked, "I would have been able to pay for it myself no problem, but I wanted Izuku to pool in because I wanted the gift to be from the two of us."

"Todoroki and I did something similar for the wedding gift that we got for the wedding, although to be honest he ended up covering over ninety percent of the cost," Reiko remarked, a hint of embarrassment in her expression near the end.

Yaoyorozu looked a bit embarrassed as she looked to the floor on her right side. "…I had to use my quirk to make what I had in mind to get for Aizawa-sensei and Ms. Joke. I can't really afford much of anything right now."

"I have meant to ask," Pony began, both her tone and expression showing that she was curious, "Are Japanese weddings different compared to American weddings? I been to wedding before in America, but never to Japanese one."

Surprisingly, it was Nezuko, the girl who was added to class A during the previous school year, who casually threw an arm over Pony's shoulders. "Relax, Horn Girl, I've actually been to a few Japanese weddings before. Three at least, as far as what I can count off the top of my head." The demonic-like girl gave Pony's back a few casual pats. "I'll guide you through things here."

The other second year hero course girls, 2-A and 2-B alike, all looked at Nezuko with varying looks of surprise. "You've been to weddings before, girl?" Mina asked.

"My family is part of a somewhat large clan," Nezuko explained, "We're a bit traditionally Japanese, so I've seen a lot more ceremonies than what a lot of you could probably guess. But that all is beside the point." Pointing her right index finger up into the air dramatically, the demonic-like girl said, "We all got to get ready for the upcoming wedding!" The girls all gave excited cheers, Satsuki and Eri especially so.

* * *

That evening, some of the guys took Aizawa to a bar, where they all had the bachelor party for the underground hero. "So Aizawa," Toshinori began in a casual, mildly amused tone, "Now that you're about to become a married man, is there anything that you think that you'll be missing about living the single life?"

"Not really, no," Aizawa replied with an indifferent shrug before he took a swig from his mug of beer. The two men sat at a bar while some of the other men at the bachelor party started up a conga line, singing wildly enough to get Aizawa and Toshinori to turn around to see what all was going on; Hizashi (to the complete lack of surprise from Aizawa) had started up/was leading the conga line. Behind Hizashi was Sekijiro, Hound Dog, and surprisingly Edgeshot in that order.

The former Symbol of Peace was likewise as unsurprised by Hizashi as Aizawa was, although he did express confusion about how the guys got Edgeshot, one of the top-ranked pro heroes, to join in on the conga line. Gesturing to the display, Toshinori said, "Well at least they all seem to be in good spirts, although I have to wonder how Hizashi was able to get Edgeshot to join in on that conga line they all have going."

"Pfft, that's nothing," Aizawa remarked, "Emi got Mirko and Ryukyu to both come to her bachelorette party." The underground hero shuddered a bit. "Given that Emi was also able to get ahold of Nemuri, Mt. Lady, Pixie-Bob and Mandalay for the bachelorette party as well, I shudder to think what all of them will get up to as they celebrate Emi's last night of being single before she and I get married."

…

Emi, as well as Mirko, Ryukyu, Nemuri, Mt. Lady, Pixie-Bob and Mandalay were all sitting about in a party room at a karaoke bar. Emi was trying to sing but was doing an admittedly rather terrible job of it. Only Nemuri, Ryukyu and Mandalay were paying attention, and the other women were all asleep or passed out from drinking. As Emi started up another song, Nemuri turned to regard the other two female pro heroes who were still up.

"Should we make her stop?" Nemuri asked.

Mandalay let out a chuckle. "Nah, let her have her fun. She's getting hitched tomorrow, so Emi needs to be allowed to get all of the excitement out of her system." Ryukyu nodded in agreement with the member of the Wild, Wild Pussycats, although she personally felt that Emi, given the kind of person that she was, would never get all of her excitement out of her system. That was just the kind of person that the Smile Hero was.

* * *

The following day was the big day itself, the day that Aizawa and Emi exchanged their vows and united as husband and wife. The wedding was held at a traditional wedding venue, although the presence of some news media hoping to get in to get some interviews or footage of the wedding between two pro heroes made the presence of security rather excusable. Some of the pro heroes who were coming to attend the wedding had a bit of trouble getting in; Ryukyu had to go into her dragon form and fly overhead just so she could get past the crowds, and Mt. Lady went giant-sized so she could step over everyone.

Eventually, all of the guests were able to get in, although some of the class 2-A and class 2-B students needed help from the pros to get past the swarm of news media people as not all of them were able to use their quirks to circumvent having to force their way through the crowds. Security actually had to force all of the news media people away when the Asui family was unable to get past on their own; they needed to get in, as Satsuki was one of the flower girls for the wedding and Samidare was the ring bearer.

The inside of the venue was very lovely, looking much like what one would expect at a traditional wedding; the people in charge of setting everything up were rather thankful towards Emi for not only making their job simple by making her modest request, but by also giving them a lot of freedom in how they went about getting everything ready. Some of the people that had done the decorating had remarked that Emi is one of the most reasonable brides that they've had to work with to date.

Everything was simply lovely, as well as sweet considering how much of a hand the 2-A and 2-B students all had in helping to run the wedding for the underground hero and his soon-to-be wife. Artemis Norio and his crew were getting their equipment set up so that they could perform the music for the wedding, Bakugo and his dad were both managing the bar, Sato and Lunch-Rush were both making sure the food for the wedding was all perfectly arranged on the food tables, and some of the 2-A and 2-B girls had even done a lovely job setting up the table that had all of the little gift bags for guests on it.

Speaking of gifts, the selection of wedding gifts that were gotten for Aizawa and Emi were very lovely, each being so in their own way. The weddings gifts ranged wildly, from a set of dinner plates to a toaster to a blender and so on and so forth; basically it was a wide selection of stuff that many would expect to see as wedding gifts for the happy couple to be. Uraraka was able to do a rather impressive show with the nice watch for Aizawa and lovely necklace for Emi, but even that was blown clear out of the water by what Principal Nezu was able to get for Aizawa and Emi as a wedding gift.

"YOU GOT US A NEW CAR?!" Emi exclaimed out of shock and sheer happiness as she and Aizawa were led over to a new car by the quirked animal principal of U.A. It was one of the latest models, sleek and shiny with its jet black coloration. No doubt that it was a rather pricy vehicle, but Nezu casually handed the keys over to Aizawa and Emi, saying that it was no big deal for him to have done what he did.

Aizawa had a sinking suspicion that this car was the reason why Nezu had to jack up the prices of food served in the U.A. cafeteria, but he decided to set his suspicions aside from the time being, hoping that Nezu would at least lower the prices back down since the new car had been obtained by this point.

The ceremony itself saw everything go as planned; the walking down the aisle after Eri and Satsuki did their flower girl job, Aizawa and Emi being at the alter with the ordained minister, Samidare presenting the rings to them (Aizawa was secretly rather glad that Endeavor didn't show up), the ceremony, everything. After all was said and done, the vows were exchanged, and the minister used the power vested in him to pronounce Aizawa and Emi as husband and wife.

The scene of the two of them having their first kiss made everyone cheer excitedly.

After that, everyone celebrated the fact that the newlywed couple was, well, now married. There was dancing, everyone enjoyed the food and cake served at the wedding (Aizawa and Emi did the first slicing of the wedding cake, of course), and everyone was able to dance, with Aizawa and Emi sharing the first dance. After that, everyone else was free to go out onto the dance floor and dance the day away.

Couples that were already married, such as Ganma and Beru, were of course dancing with each other, but there were other pairs dancing as well. Taking a cue from her parents, Tsuyu decided to go out onto the dance floor, dragging Tokoyami along with her. There was also Hagakure and Ojiro, Yaoyorozu and Yosetsu, Shinso and Sakaki, Kyoka and Kaminari, Sero and Mina, Reiko and Todoroki, Bakugo and Pony, Kirishima and Kinoko, and then Tenya and Eunice.

Some of the U.A. students were surprised to see that Ibara, the devout Christian that she was, had taken to dancing with Akuma of all people; seeing a Christian dance so closely with a Satanist got a lot of people's attention. But then again, something that also got a lot of attention was seeing Satsuki dancing with Kota, the younger cousin of Mandalay. As for Eri, she was sitting off to the side in a somewhat quiet and somewhat secluded place where Samidare was trying to keep calm, given that he was just starting to get a little overwhelmed.

What was really lovely, at least as far as Uraraka was concerned, was that she was able to have a dance at the wedding with Izuku. The chubby gravity girl never felt happier than at that moment, the moment where the boy that she loved had his arms around her as she had hers around him, the two of them sharing a dance. As they danced, Izuku noticed something that had gotten his attention; pointing it out to Uraraka, the two of them saw Izuku's mom Inko share a dance and a kiss with Bakugo's dad Masaru.

Uraraka thought that the scene was sweet, but what she found even sweeter was when Izuku pulled her in and planted a kiss on her lips, making her light up red as her heart raced a bit out of sheer excitement over the romantic gesture. The two of them, as well as all other couples, felt at that moment that everything was going to go well, that it would be nothing but smooth sailing from here on out.

Given what all they've gone through in recent events, they all deserved a break.

END, CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

Author's notes;

Well there we have it, the wedding happened, Aizawa and Emi are now married, and everything is looking alright. The next chapter will, sadly enough, be the last for this story as a whole, but it will end on as positive of a note as can be managed. Basically, the next chapter will show what all everyone gets up to after this point, sort of like a 'where are they now' kind of deal. It'll show all of the main players and what they're up to. And who knows? Some of what will happen may come as a surprise to some of you.


	77. Chapter 77

Disclaimer: I do not own My Hero Academia/Boku No Hero Academia, or any other property in this work that I did not make myself.

A couple that will go down in legend

Chapter seventy-seven: Where are they now?

After she passed away during her son's first year at U.A., Mitsuki Bakugo underwent apotheosis, becoming an immortal demigod in the process. After outfitting herself as an ancient Sumerian, she joined up with Gilgamesh and Enkidu, accompanying them on many of their epic adventures. The last that anyone had heard of her, the ascended Mitsuki was seen helping Gilgamesh fight some blonde girl who was somehow the reincarnation of the legendary British king, Arthur Pendragon.

Masaru Bakugo, who had divorced from Mitsuki sometime well before she lost her battle with Breast Cancer, ended up getting into a relationship with Inko, who was widowed when her international spy husband Hisashi was killed in action. During the winter of Izuku and Bakugo's second year at U.A., Masaru and Inko got married; although this meant he was now related to 'that damn nerd Deku', Bakugo was rather okay, mostly because he got a very loving step-mom out of the deal. Masaru and Inko remain happily married to this day.

Shouta and Emi Aizawa had a very lovely honeymoon that, strangely enough, saw them visit Konohagakure, the resident shinobi village of the Land of Fire. While there, they ran into a trio of eccentric older Konoha shinobi, the lone woman of that trio having with her a talking dog (Aizawa believed that the dog could talk due to having a quirk; it wouldn't have been the first time that he had ever seen an animal with a quirk) that wore an eyepatch and was missing an ear. After returning from her honeymoon with Aizawa, the first thing that Emi wanted to do was for her and her husband to adopt Shinso and Eri, which they did. Shouta and Emi remain happily married to this day.

With the exception of Recovery Girl, who sadly had to step down from her position when her age made it impossible to work on a daily basis, all primary staff members of U.A. High School remain employed at the top hero academy in Japan to this day. The four auxiliary members who were hired, those being Mirko, Ryukyu, Mt. Lady and Pixie-Bob, were able to step down as the need for them had passed, allowing them all to return to their work. By the way, Recovery Girl only had to step down from working; she's still alive, thank goodness for that.

After graduating from U.A.'s hero course, Izuku Midoriya was able to get work as a sidekick at Endeavor's agency. He worked there for about a year, quickly racking up a lot of renown, enough so that it would allow him to strike out on his own with his own agency. After another year since that, Izuku made into the top ten of the Hero Billboard Chart JP. A year and a half after that Izuku was able to work his way up to being the number one hero, a spot that he still holds to this day.

Katsuki Bakugo, similar to Izuku, got his start as a pro hero after graduation from U.A. as a sidekick at Endeavor's agency. It took him a little bit more time than it did for Izuku to gain the traction he needed to strike out on his own, but Bakugo still accomplished it, getting his own hero agency in the process. Bakugo has yet to surpass his step-brother for the title of number one pro hero in Japan, but given how sweet his life overall is right now, Bakugo finds that he really doesn't care all that much about surpassing the green-haired pro hero. Bakugo's agency employs many of his old friends from his U.A. days as sidekicks, such as Kaminari and Sero just to name a few.

Shoto Todoroki, much also like Izuku and Bakugo, started out after graduation from U.A. at the Endeavor agency, meaning he worked for his own father. The day that one of his closest friends took his father's title as the number one hero in Japan was a day that Todoroki would never forget, as seeing his father surpassed by Izuku made Todoroki laugh so hard that the drink he was having at the time shot out of his nose; given that it was his favorite cola, Todoroki's nose stung for a little bit.

Tenya Iida, when he graduated from U.A., got his start as a pro hero at the agency his older brother Tensei established. The agency, which was run by one of Tensei's sidekicks when the older Iida brother had to step down because Stain, gladly accepted the younger brother of their old boss. Eventually, the sidekick that was running things for Tensei felt that Tenya was ready, thus he handed the reins on the agency over to Tenya. The first thing that Tenya did as the new head of his older brother's old agency was set up a special peace room for Eunice Sirknight, his girlfriend from U.A. who by that point was his fiancé. Tenya and Eunice soon got married, and eventually they had a son that they named Tengoh.

Eijiro Kirishima is the only friend of Bakugo's to not have ever been employed at Bakugo's agency, as the crimson-haired pro hero was able to strike out on his own after a few years at Fat Gum's agency. His drive to do the right thing, coupled with his definition of what it means to be 'manly' did a lot to help boost Kirishima's popularity; currently, Kirishima sits at the number six spot on the Hero Billboard Charts JP. Kirishima's own agency employs a number of his old schoolmates that were in class B after an agency they all started up together went under for a few reasons; some of Kirishima's class B sidekicks include Nirengeki, Tetsutetsu, and Monoma.

Dabi, Spinner, Toga, Skeptic, Mr. Compress and Danjuro were all released at the same time fifteen years after the first five had met the sixth one in prison. After they were released, they were taken in by Artemis Norio, who by that point was a pro hero with his own agency. Artemis, known by then as the Perfect Hero: Cell, said that he would 'rehabilitate' the former villains and turn them into heroes, to make them into examples of how anyone can turn their life around if they are given the chance; Artemis had already done this with former Eight Precepts member Kendo Rappa, who would go one to join Dabi's sub-group within Artemis's agency. Also employed at Artemis's agency were Sora, Zidane, Yertle, and Danjuro's associate La Brava. Samidare ended up being hired as the accountant slash tech support, and his skills with numbers is one of the (main) reasons why Artemis's agency is still going.

Ochaco Uraraka, due to a mix of never quite getting over the trauma of her life being endangered multiple times in her first year of U.A. and also losing her mother during that same year, never quite stopped it with the stress/comfort eating. As a result, by sometime during the middle of her last year at U.A., Uraraka had become rather obese, at a minimum equaling Sakaki Yamamaya in terms of how much she weighed. Luckily for the gravity girl, her boyfriend Izuku had never stopped loving her, as he still finds her just as cute and lovely as the day that he first saw her. Shortly after Izuku struck out on his own as a pro hero, he took Uraraka out to dinner to celebrate and, during said dinner, he ended up proposing to her. Uraraka was in tears of happiness as she said yes, and they ended up getting married, a happy relationship that is still going on to this day. Ochaco and Izuku ended up having one child together, a son that they named Fuyuki.

Pony Tsunotori, even though she had graduated from U.A.'s hero course, was having trouble finding her footing as a pro hero as no agency would hire her, which she suspected was due to her still having a lack of grasp on the finer aspects of the Japanese language as well as her half-foreign heritage. She ended up having to crash with her boyfriend Bakugo, not that he minded keeping a roof over his half-American girlfriend's head. Pony still struggled to find an agency that would hire her until Bakugo hired her to his own agency. Eventually, the two high school sweethearts would marry, staying happily as such to this day. Like many other U.A. hero course girls who married their high school sweethearts, Pony had one child with her sweet heart, but unlike the other U.A. hero course girls Pony had a daughter; at Bakugo's request, he and Pony named their daughter after Bakugo's step-mother Inko.

Reiko Yanagi was quicker than more girls that graduated from the hero course at U.A. to get work as a pro hero, being hired to her boyfriend Todoroki's father's agency as a sidekick. The Flame Hero was rather gentle and courteous to her, partly because his son was in love with her, but mostly because Reiko reminded Enji of his wife Rei (to an extent), which he suspected is one of the reasons why Shoto fell in love with the ghost girl. Reiko and Shoto ended up getting married, and together they had a son who was named Touya. Todoroki was a bit amused to see his father become a total doting grandfather to the baby boy, spoiling the boy silly.

While Fumikage Tokoyami was able to find some footing of his own to strike out as a pro hero, his girlfriend-turned fiancé-turned wife Tsuyu Asui ended up staying employed at Ryukyu's agency, similar to other U.A. hero course girls such as Ochaco, Kinoko and Eunice. Even so, Tsuyu was still able to do well as a pro hero, even though she was only employed as a sidekick. Tsuyu and Tokoyami have one child together, a son that they named after Tsuyu's younger brother Samidare.

Hanta Sero, who is still employed as a sidekick at Bakugo's agency to this day, ended up saying yes when fellow Baku-squad member Mina Ashido proposed to him (yes, the girl proposed to the guy in this case). Nothing was too notable about their happy union compared to others who had been dating since their U.A. days, but the son that Sero and Mina had, who they named Ragna, soon proved to be as…creative…as his mother. Sero wasn't sure if he should be proud or afraid of this.

Kinoko Komori, who started using Kirishima's last name as soon as they were married, stayed employed at Ryukyu's agency as a sidekick after first getting hired there. The photo shoots that Kinoko and other sidekicks occasionally did due to Ryukyu having her own fashion line was a step in the direction that the mushroom hero felt she needed to achieve her dreams of becoming an idol hero. Kinoko was ecstatic when she found out she was pregnant, and roughly nine months later she gave birth to her and Kirishima's son, Komaru. Out of all of the children that are the spawn of hero course students from the 'legendary year' as said year is referred to as, Komaru Kirishima is the youngest of the lot; Inko Bakugo is the oldest child in that regard, in case you were curious.

Momo Yaoyorozu ended up marrying her boyfriend Yosetsu Awase sometime after they and the rest of their graduating class all graduated from U.A.'s hero course. Although Yosetsu was able to get a start on his hero career as a sidekick out of Endeavor's agency, Momo was unable to find such luck due to the stigma that she carried because of what her father had been discovered to have done; no agency would take her on, and she wasn't able to get a lot of traction as an independent pro hero because most people, once they found out who her father was, inched away from her out of a sense of disgust. Momo had to do what jobs that she could get her hands on, mostly as a tutor for hire to help middle and high school students study for entrance exams and the like; because of this, Momo and Yosetsu occasionally struggled when it came to their income. Momo and Yosetsu ended up having a child together, a son that they named Sebas.

Kyoka Jiro ended up with quite a sweet life; she was able to get a decent start as a pro hero starting out of the agency that Bakugo had started up, she did some part-time work as a music performer who occasionally did gigs, and she even ended up marrying her high school sweet heart Denki Kaminari who, like Kyoka, was able to get a decently successful career as a pro hero. Kyoka and Kaminari had one child together, a son that they named Marley.

Nobody knew, much less cared, about what became of Minoru Mineta, who was expelled from U.A. during the first year that the 'legendary year' attended the top hero academy in Japan. However, shortly after the 'legendary year' graduated from U.A., there were hushed rumors going around the streets of an organization that was known only as Cornucopia; the group is supposedly made up of a mix of quirkless criminals and low-level quirked villains. However, vague details about the supposed boss of Cornucopia, known only as Jam, struck some of the class A boys from the 'legendary year' as being somewhat familiar.

Eri Aizawa (she lacked a last name so Shouta slapped his onto her adoption forms) was happy to see her big brother Hitoshi Shinso (he got to keep his last name for various reasons that will take too long to get into) get married to his high school sweetheart Sakaki, and even more excited when Sakaki gave birth to her and Hitoshi's son Aizawa (Hitoshi wanted to name his son after his adoptive father, but didn't want to go the more predicable route of using Aizawa's first name). Eri ended up starting her own hero academia six years after the 'legendary year' had all graduated, making the horned girl fifteen when she started.

But what Eri's own adventures in the hallowed halls of U.A. were like…heh, well, that's another story for another time.

THE END

Author's notes;

Well, there you have it. After seventy-seven chapters, 'A couple that will go down in legend' has finally come to a close. If there was someone you were looking forward to seeing covered in the 'where are they now' style rundown here but weren't covered, just assume that they're doing okay. I do have the primary sequel to this story planned, as well as the Mineta spinoff and the Eri spinoff, so more details will be covered there. However, all of those are most likely going to be quite a ways off I'm afraid, as I need to take a break from writing to focus on other things that I have going on in my life right now.


End file.
